


A Common Understanding

by joyfulseeker



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Futuristic, M/M, Regency Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-09
Updated: 2007-04-09
Packaged: 2017-10-09 09:29:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/85724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joyfulseeker/pseuds/joyfulseeker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patrick has one chance to save his brother, but will he pay the price?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Common Understanding (1/3)

**Author's Note:**

> For [](http://community.livejournal.com/damnyouwentz/profile)[**damnyouwentz**](http://community.livejournal.com/damnyouwentz/)'s Romance Novel Cliche Challenge. Beta by [](http://callsigns.livejournal.com/profile)[**callsigns**](http://callsigns.livejournal.com/). May be consent issues.

**1.**

 

Patrick put his hand out and touched the shuddering glass of the porthole window as the shuttle began its descent planetward. Overhead, the heat shields slid into place, obscuring the view of the stars, while a programmed digital voice counted mellifluously back from twenty. Patrick found himself sing-songing the planetfall routine in his mind, a throwback to his primary schooling days and the space travel mnemonic children recited in the schoolyard during games of cross-tag and asteroid-mine.

"--and the i-on-o-sphere," Patrick muttered, then caught an amused glance from his seatmate, an older woman wearing a conservative flounced suit with two buttons on the lapel, indicating her position as a scholar. Patrick flushed and shut his mouth, turning toward the window. Outside, the curve of the planet fell away and the window polarized against the light as the shuttle hit atmosphere and flared up. Patrick had seen innumerable shuttles make planetfall from the surface, but this was the first time he'd actually been in one.

Okay, he thought, okay, taking deliberate, even breaths. A couple of other people in the shuttle were staring out the window, too, but most were tapping at hand-held displays, and a handful had the fixed-eyes look that meant they were paying through the nose for the shuttle's VR network. For the fiftieth time, Patrick reached out to make a vid-call, then put his hand back on his armrest. PlanetHopper Transportation was the cheapest shuttle service between New Trier and Angelia, but that wasn't saying much, and they squeezed the credits out their passengers by charging triple on their auxiliary services. He could wait to call Brendon until he hit dirt, especially if he just got Brendon's away-vid again.

"It's all right, dear," his seatmate said, leaning over and patting his arm. "This landing is going perfectly well, _such_ a fine pilot."

Patrick glanced down at his hand and stilled his tapping fingers. "Quite," he muttered.

"First time flying?" she asked, giving a maternal smile.

"Oh, no," Patrick said. "I mean, rather. My first interplanetary trip. I've taken intraplanetary." Once, he added mentally. He caught himself beginning to fidget again and forcibly stopped himself.

"Oh, excellent!" the woman exclaimed. "Oh, my dear, you will _love_ Angelia. Quite a change from New Trier, I assure you."

Patrick nodded and tried to smile as she went on to describe the sights crucial to his enjoyment of the planet, though she stalled briefly on his answer of, "Business--well, family. Family business," when asked if he was coming for business or pleasure.

Beyond her earnestly nodding head, the horizon pin-wheeled, and Patrick caught a brief, kaleidoscopic view of the city, brilliantly lit in the dark. Angelia City, he thought, and despite the nerves in his stomach, he found himself looking forward to it, wondering what it would be like. Maybe. Maybe Brendon wouldn't be in too much trouble. Maybe the trouble on the vid-call would turn out to have all been a misunderstanding, and Brendon would laugh at his worries and call him a protective older brother. Perhaps he _would_ get to see the sights before he returned home.

The shuttle slid smoothly into port, as advertised, and Patrick exchanged polite farewells with his seatmate before stopping at one of the coat check slots to retrieve his minimal luggage, shabby coat, and cap. The spaceport hummed around him when he stepped out the hatch of the shuttle and stopped, disoriented by the plethora of floating arrows pointing out the sights. "Ah, pardon," he murmured, moving aside as other passengers jostled him from behind.

An orange arrow on black background pulsed toward the right-hand tramway option, indicating public transportation tubes. Patrick took a breath and followed it, holding tight to the railway as the tramway lifted him off the ground and snaked down to a lower level, spitting him out onto cracked and blackened pavement somewhere in the depths of the spaceport. There was a public vid drop set in the far wall, and Patrick went to it and muttered, "Brendon Urie," into the pickup. The screen beeped, asking for payment, and Patrick keyed in his credit code.

The screen went directly to another damned away message, a recorded automated avatar telling him the recipient wasn't available. Patrick swore and thumped his fist against the side of the screen, then looked over his shoulder guiltily, but the platform was still empty.

"Message unclear," the computer said. "Please repeat."

"Right," Patrick sighed. "Right, right, sorry, Brendon? This is. This is Patrick. Please, your last call alarmed us. Mother asked me to--I'm at the spaceport now, I'm coming over. Um. I'll see you soon."

"Patrick Stump," the computer said.

"Yes." Patrick looked up from searching through his satchel for Brendon's dorm's address.

"Secondary message for group: friends and family."

"Ah. Uh. Display."

The computerized face disintegrated, replaced by Brendon's own face grimacing in a wide smile from the screen. Face paint swirled across his brow and down one side of his temples, but didn't manage to obscure the large bruise that glowered across his right eye, or his split lower lip.

"Hel-_lo_ chaps," he said.

"_Brendon_," Patrick said, but Brendon's mouth moved on, heedless.

"We're all gathering at 329-356 for a bit of fun before our doom arrives; come join the cake-eaters!"

Cake-eaters, Patrick mouthed, trying to reconcile his brother's smiling face with the shaky horror-footage he'd seen a day earlier, the loud crash that had sent Brendon reeling away from the screen, leaving his frozen, terror-filled face hanging on the screen for a moment before vid-lag cut in and sent everything into chaos, followed by Brendon screaming, high and sharp, like the time he'd broken his leg trying to scale a building when he was eight. The screen had gone blank while Patrick was still shouting, fingers scrambling against the keypad for an emergency contact, and every time Patrick had called back, he'd gotten shunted to an away message. No one called from the university until Patrick couldn't wait anymore and booked passage on the next trip out.

Patrick pinched the bridge of his nose, then sighed. "Replay message," he said, and began trying to find out where his errant, though apparently still living, brother had gone.

The public transportation system spit him out in a darkened, grey area of the city and instructed him to walk three blocks. Patrick looked around uneasily, and gathered his satchel closer to his chest, tugging his coat around him. The only building with any sign of life in the area was a brightly lit club with a line of people snaking out the door, all dressed in brilliant colors and flamboyant body paint for a night out.

He stopped across the street, painfully aware of his drab, travel-wrinkled clothing. An androgynous quartet showing a scandalous amount of skin sauntered up to the front of the line as he watched. The leader of the group leaned up and whispered something to the doorman, light winking off his glittering hair, hand trailing up the large man's arm and wrapping around his beefy neck to bring him down in a kiss. Patrick, shocked, looked away, but no one else seemed alarmed by the display at the front door and when Patrick looked back, the doorman was laughing and stepping aside.

Patrick skirted around a man leaning against the wall, scowling down at a portable vidder, and made to cross the street, then backtracked. "Excuse me," he said, reaching out a hand. The man's eyes snapped up, unwelcoming, and Patrick let his hand drop, backing away with a muttered, "Sorry."

"What," the man said, straightening up from his slouch. He was short--hardly taller than Patrick--and looked young, with his hair dressed in thick, black and red spikes and covered in an iridescent sheen.

"No, never mind, sorry to--to bother you," Patrick said.

"You have my attention, you might as well ask," the man said, and Patrick realized that despite the man's dandied appearance, his accent was as common as Patrick's own.

"I just, ah, wondered if you knew if this was three twenty-nine, three fifty-six."

The man's eyes opened wide before he laughed suddenly, face smoothing into attractiveness with a smile shiny like a vid-star's, shaking his head. "Oh, well," he said, sauntering towards Patrick. "Who are you?"

"Um," Patrick said, holding on tighter to his satchel. "Patrick. My. I'm Patrick Stump. I'm looking for my brother, Brendon? Do you...?"

"Well. Patrick," the man said, speaking with deliberate precision. "Nice to meet you."

"You as well," Patrick said, though that seemed very much in doubt. He glanced toward the door, where the bouncer was letting in another crowd of people right as a group of five was staggering out. Patrick scanned their faces, but none of them looked like Brendon. Assuming, of course, that he could still recognize Brendon in whatever ungodly outfit he would be wearing to fit in at a place like this.

He was supposed to be studying xenobotany, Patrick thought despairingly. Staying inside the bounds of University campus and spending all his time with his plants, like his vid-calls had implied.

"Pete," the man said, suddenly rather closer.

"No," Patrick said absently. "Patrick." The man laughed, practically in Patrick's ear, and Patrick flinched away, then flushed. "Oh," he said. "You're. Right. All right. Um. Hello."

"You want in?" the man--Pete--said.

No, Patrick thought, but turned and looked at him. Pete had his hands in his tight pockets and was looking at Patrick, a faint smile on his face. "Actually," Patrick said reluctantly. "Actually, yes, that would be fantastic."

Pete, strange, unpredictable man, extended his arm. Patrick stared at it, clothed in soft, tight fabric. "Ah," he hesitated.

"If you're with me," Pete said, "they'll let you in."

"Oh," Patrick said, and put his hand gingerly into the crook of Pete's elbow. They started across the street, promenading like this dingy back alley road was a lane in one of Angelia City's's famed gardens, and Patrick's fingers tightened involuntarily on Pete's arm as they walked along the line of people toward the door.

The doorman, however, simply nodded and stepped aside, saying, "Mr Wentz, back so soon?"

"I found a new diversion, Charlie," Pete said, fingers smoothing over Patrick's hand, tightening when Patrick tried to jerk his hand away.

Patrick hissed out a breath, but Charlie was already drawing back the beaded, shimmering curtain at the doorway, and when Patrick shot a look at Pete, he had a small close-mouthed smile on his face.

"That wasn't _necessary_," Patrick whispered as they passed over the threshold. His skin tingled briefly, and he stiffened.

"It's the weapons scan," Pete muttered, then said more loudly, "Why? I wasn't lying."

Patrick opened his mouth, and then closed it again, deliberately removing his hand from Pete's arm. "Well. As flattering as that is. I thank you, sir, for, for helping me."

"Oh, my pleasure," Pete said, letting him go easily. Flashing light from the interior of the club illuminated his face in the dark, highlighting the smooth, polished planes of his face, his quizzically raised eyebrow.

"Yes," Patrick said. "Well. If you'll excuse me."

"Ah, no," Pete said. "I think I'll come along. I have an investment, after all."

"I don't think that's necessary," Patrick said.

"No?" Pete shrugged. "Maybe you're right. The staff might not mistake you for a maintenance worker and throw you out. It's possible."

Patrick bit his lip, before smiling thinly at Pete. "Well. That's...kind of you."

"Yes," Pete said, and put a hand under Patrick's elbow, pushing him forward down the hall. "I know."

The club was quite loud when they got inside, and the booths extended around the perimeter of the room in all directions, Patrick was dismayed to note, including vertically. The main attraction was a zero-g dance space in the center of the room, which looked to be a flailing mass of humanity to Patrick's bemused eye, and below it was a circular bar.

"Don't they worry?" Patrick asked. Pete leaned close and tapped his ear. Patrick repeated, "Don't they worry? At the bar? About people falling on their heads?"

Pete's teeth were a white flash in the shadows of his face as he reared his head back and laughed loudly, slapping Patrick on the back. Patrick smiled uncertainly, and after a moment Pete leaned in again and said, "They're protected by the same field that maintains the zero-g." He chuckled and shook his head, and Patrick could barely make out him repeating, "Falling on their _heads_," to himself.

Patrick muttered an acknowledgment and turned away to start searching the booths for his brother, fighting his way through the crowd with Pete a slim, brightly dressed shadow at his elbow. Their progress was slow as Patrick avoided stepping on flounced skirts and ducked around headdresses shaped like exotic plants, like flocks of birds, like nebulae rotating around people's heads. The slow pace didn't appear to hamper Pete, who collected and lost people in no pattern Patrick could see, though he often paused to exchange words Patrick couldn't hear, and, Patrick noticed, a long kiss with a tall, thin, beautiful boy with thick brown hair that fell in easy waves down to his shoulder. Patrick looked away quickly at that, kept walking, unsettled by this stranger who had decided to involve himself in Patrick's life, unsettled by this entire situation, this club, the pounding beat of the music driving though out of his head after his long flight.

Pete reappeared alone as Patrick was rounding another booth.

"Don't you have enough diversions here?" Patrick snapped at the sight of him hovering over Patrick's shoulder.

"What, you don't like my company?" Pete donned a hurt expression that even Patrick, in the dim light of the club, could see was false. "Here it is, though. A secret, Mr Patrick Stump." Pete leaned in, face sharp with amusement, and Patrick tilted is head to listen, almost despite himself. "I think you're interesting."

"I'm not," Patrick said positively, thinking of the factory job he'd left to come here, and stepped backwards, accidentally knocking into a man holding a glass of green liquor. "Sorry," he muttered, turning away from Pete's laughing eyes.

After that, it felt as though every eye in the club was on him, and he hunched his shoulders against the persistent prickle of awareness on the back of his neck of Pete looking at him.

"He's not here," Patrick said, frustrated, when he'd made a full circuit of the room.

"No," Pete said. "He's upstairs." Patrick stopped. "Oh," Pete said. "Did I forget to mention? Huh." He shrugged. "My memory. It gets worse and worse. Sisky whispered in my ear."

"That's. All right, thank you, that's _fantastic_," Patrick said. "I'm glad I'm so _entertaining_." He turned and started pushing through the crowd toward the lifts at the end of the line of booths.

Behind him, Pete said, "You're welcome," before Patrick was swept upward along with an obviously inebriated couple who laughed raucously loudly as the lift floated them up to the second-floor tier. The girl staggered backwards into Patrick, almost falling over him when they were safely on the ground, tilting dangerously on her high spiked sandals, and Patrick had to take her arm to keep her upright.

"Excuse me," he muttered. The girl laughed in his ear, making him jerk away, and then she was touching him familiarly, pupils dilated, painted lips and cheeks stretched wide in a smile.

"Soft," she said, fingers running over his hair, and she was _stroking_ his head. "He's soft, Marcus, can we keep him?"

"I beg your pardon," Patrick stammered, catching at her hands, trying to push her off without oversetting her. "That's--no, thank you. _No_." His last word came out on a squeak as the girl's hand skated close to his groin. Her partner curled a lazy arm around her waist and peered at Patrick with heavy-lidded eyes.

The lift whooshed to life again behind Patrick, and he was actually relieved to see Pete out of the corner of his eye. "Pete!" he said. "This young lady--"

When he looked over, she was stepping back, pouting, tossing her head. "Always the way it is!" she was whining in an undertone to her partner as she tottered away.

"Ah. Nothing," Patrick finished lamely, watching the pair's meandering progress.

"No," Pete said. "I can see that."

Patrick flushed, but didn't back away from Pete's hand on the small of his back, guiding him down the narrow aisle between the tables and the railing of the balcony. "Here," Pete said in his ear, pressing him left, and Patrick ducked his head. The second floor was less crowded than the main floor, but made up for it by being dimly lit. He had to squint to see faces in the booths, some of which were privacy-screened against him.

His brother was sitting with his back to Patrick in a booth nearly at the end of the balcony, and at the sight of his familiar lanky silhouette, Patrick felt a knot of tension in his chest relax finally. "Oh."

"There," Pete said, still intimately close. "Are you grateful? Do you thank me? Are you grateful?"

"Yes," Patrick said, swallowing. "Yes."

"Good," Pete said, and let him go. When Patrick looked back at the table, Brendon's shocked face stared back at him, mouth flapping, shaping words Patrick couldn't hear. He had his face covered with the same fashionably gaudy paint as the other club denizens, but still looked like the brother Patrick had farewelled at the space port in New Trier eight months ago, and Patrick took two steps, bridging the distance between them, hands coming down to grip Brendon's shoulder and upper arm.

"_Brendon_," he said, unable to sort his emotions between anger and relief.

"Patrick!" Brendon shouted, jumping up from the table. He clasped Patrick's arm, and Patrick saw a brief, guilty shadow cross Brendon's face. "What--how are you _here_?"

"We were worried!" Patrick yelled, patience fraying. "You can't just--just leave a call, and, and your vid--we worried!"

Brendon cast a brief, anxious glance over his shoulder at his table, full of young people who were staring curiously at them. He dragged Patrick two steps away, closer to the balcony. Pete, Patrick noticed, was leaning on the railing with his arms folded across his chest, looking fascinated.

"Look, I'm sorry," Brendon said, eyes flickering between Patrick's face and the crowded dance space. "I should have called back, I know, but the vid got broken, and it took days to get it fixed, and I didn't want to charge another account."

"How did it get broken?" Patrick demanded. Closer, he could see marks on Brendon's face, poorly hidden by the paint. A split lip, a red gash across his nose, a black eye.

"Just horseplay," Brendon said, scowling. "A joke from my classmates. How did you get in here? You're not dressed for it."

"You're. Are you _lying to me_?" Patrick said incredulously.

Brendon jerked his head, looking all of five years old. "I'm not."

"I flew all this way," Patrick said, "I followed you into this-this-_place_. You should at least tell me the truth."

"I'm not lying!" Brendon's face crumpled.

Patrick looked at him for a long moment, not saying anything, then looked down. They were making a public spectacle.

"Fine, look," he said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to--I'm just--it's been a long evening."

"I'm so amazed," Brendon said, face easing, though a thread of tension still ran through his voice. "Coming all this way. Can you. Are you staying long?"

"I never use my sick days," Patrick said.

"Where are you staying? Do you have luggage? It's amazing that you were able to find me," Brendon said, words falling over each other in a hurried rush. "Come, come, meet my friends, now that you're no longer bellowing."

"I wasn't bellowing," Patrick said. "I was enunciating." He let Brendon lead him back to the table, then paused halfway there. "Wait, I need to thank the gentleman that got me in. An odd sort of person, I think, but. He did a kindness."

"Oh, yes," Brendon said vaguely. "I had wondered. You look like a janitor, you know."

Patrick hunched his shoulders. "I didn't realize I'd be dressing for _society_," he muttered, then added, "if this even _is_. Brendon, it's so _loud_."

"I know, isn't it exciting?" Brendon looked around. "Who is this man who got you in?"

"Pete Wentz, I think was his name." Patrick glanced toward the balcony. "He was right over there...No," Patrick said. "He must have gone. He seemed to know a lot of people."

Brendon's hand clamped on Patrick's arm. "Pete Wentz."

"Ow." Patrick peeled Brendon's hand off. "What

"Pete _Wentz_?" Brendon hissed. "What did he want? Why did he let you in?"

"Ow! Stop it. Nothing, I don't know--it looked like a whim." Patrick shrugged. "He's gone now."

Brendon's eyes darted around the room. He leaned in and said, "Did he ask you for anything? I've heard he's trouble, Patrick."

Patrick knit his brow, feeling oddly defensive. "He wasn't trouble for me." He thought about the deception with the second floor and added, "Much. In any case, it doesn't signify, I doubt we'll meet again, unless you two run in similar circles."

"No," Brendon said. Shifting lights from the dance space cast shadows on his face, lingering in the hollows under his eyes. He looked tired, Patrick thought. "But no one in this city does for free." He bit his lip, and Patrick found that he was doing the same in unconscious mimicry, infected by his brother's worry. Brendon sighed, and shook his head. "Never mind. I'm sure it's fine. Come! Meet my friends!" He smiled, fever-bright, and led Patrick toward the table. "You'll enjoy Angelia."

 

* * *

 

Brendon was gone when Patrick awoke the next morning, suspended in the float-bed Brendon had borrowed from a friend and set up in his dormitory room in the upper level of the University complex. Patrick squinted at the bright sunlight sheeting in through the windows and groaned. One brightly colored drink had led to another, and that, on top of the fatigue from the trip to Angelia had put an effective end to Patrick asking Brendon any more questions.

He shuffled up out of the bed and stumbled over to the vid, which did indeed sport several nasty-looking dents in the casing. He yawned loudly, bracing his hand on the top corner, then jumped a foot when the screen flickered on and started playing a recording Brendon had left him.

"Sorry old boy, had to go to class and you're still out," Brendon whispered. His vid-double looked none the worse for their late night, aside from the bruising on his face, clearer now in daylight and not obscured by face paint. Patrick glowered. The double looked over his shoulder, where Patrick could see his own feet sticking out into the pickup window. "I'll be done at three. I programmed the door to let you in, so please, um. Enjoy the city. Bye!"

Patrick ground his heels in his eye sockets and then pushed his fingers through his hair, trying to wake up. Brendon's tightly wound energy just made him feel more tired and made it hard to think clearly. "Right," he muttered. "Right." He coughed into his hand. "Um. Outgoing call. Interplanetary. New Trier. Bob Bryar. Primary number, residence."

The vid chimed, then said, "Accessing," before the screen filled with the familiar logo of the Interplanetary Access Network. "Vid-lag is thirty seconds."

"Thank you," Patrick muttered unnecessarily. A minute later, the screen cleared, leaving Bob and his barbaric blond beard beaming at Patrick.

"How goes your brother?" Bob asked, and waited.

"Hello," Patrick said. "I think I'll be here longer than I expected. I found him. He's at class now."

Thirty seconds later, Bob's eyebrows raised, and he nodded. "Everything's fine, then? Big brother running out for nothing?"

"I...don't know," Patrick said, kneading the back of his neck, remembering the strain in Brendon's face. "I think--I don't know. I wanted to tell you not to worry if I'm not back in a couple days."

Bob nodded, and didn't press for details. "I'll tell the company you've taken personal leave." He paused. "Though, don't expect your cactus to be alive when you return. Some things are beyond my roommate perview."

"I've hardly used any of my personal days," Patrick said. "Also, and may I point out that it is, in fact, a cactus?"

Bob waved a dismissive hand, then leaned forward. "So," he said. "Is Angelia City everything the vids claim?"

Patrick hesitated, remembering the previous evening. "It's very odd," he admitted. "And fine. I'm finding it hard to find my footing. Brendon is...very different here." He thought of Pete Wentz. "The people are very different here as well. But interesting."  
"Interesting?" Bob asked, voice edging toward innuendo.

Patrick waved his hand, flushing, and spent the rest of the call telling Bob of the more flamboyant holograms he'd seen the night before, until his time ran out and he had to cut the call.

 

**2.**

 

Patrick met Greta his first morning in Angelia City, while wandering alone in search of breakfast. It was a beautiful city in the sunlight, Patrick could admit. Broad, tree-lined lanes and crowded with small shops and eateries dominated the area around the University. Air vehicle travel was prohibited in that district, so the sky stretched blue overhead, unmarred by anything but clouds and the occasional white, dart-tailed track of a shuttle coming or going through the atmosphere. Patrick strolled down the street peering into shops and skirting the knots of pedestrians, their chatter and the hawking cries of street vendors loud in his ears. It made a nice change from the whine of airbuses and helos that would have filled the sky at home.

"Portrait, sir?" a female voice called to his left. Patrick turned. A young woman smiled at him from behind a booth, surrounded by shimmering pictures. "Just a single strand of hair, and it'll incorporate not only your physical appearance, but your very genetic code. A _true_ portrait, sir, and only on Angelia!" She was pretty and finely made up, blond hair curling over her shoulder and down the low neckline of her dress, but she smiled with a sunny innocence when Patrick met her eyes.

"Oh." Patrick stopped automatically. "I'm not really one for pictures," he said, smiling apologetically.

"Look," she urged, and Patrick examined one of the small plastic squares, pressing a button to make the picture spring to life. They mostly looked like ordinary holos, dignified men and beautiful girls either glaring or smiling blankly into space, but when Patrick tilted his head, they gained a certain abstraction, the hint of a repeated motif underlying the figures.

"I'm sorry," Patrick said regretfully. "I'm afraid I'm not in the market. But you wouldn't happen to know a restaurant in the area?"

She laughed and introduced herself as Greta, her hand small and surprisingly hard against his palm when he shook it, and directed him to a cafe two shops over. "The best Angelian breakfast credits can buy, I promise you."

"I'll take your word for it," Patrick said, and gave a polite goodbye, warmed by the first unalloyed friendliness he'd seen since arriving on-planet.

She was an artist by trade, Patrick found out, and only a few years younger than him. She liked bright, strappy dresses and often wore flowers in her hair, either real or clever holograms of her own construction. She always greeted him by name whenever he wandered by her booth, and it made the city, imposing in its bulk, feel a little smaller. She liked to laugh, and Patrick grew adept at finding stories to tell that provoked her to helpless giggles, and that sound made the long, frustrating days better.

"Come, Patrick," she said one morning, after Patrick had spent a particularly fruitless evening trying to press Brendon on the source of his difficulty. Her hands slid busily across her digital pad. A young couple was sitting together in front of her, gazing into each other's eyes and giggling. "I feel it. Today is the day you're going to let me make you a portrait."

Patrick shook his, grinning. He pressed a button on one of her portrait blocks, and the holo sprang up to hang in the air with ghostly elegance. "You wouldn't want my face in there. It would ruin your display."

"Lies, all lies and falsehoods, Mister Modesty," Greta said. The couple looked up, startled. "No, no, not you two. You look gorgeous."

The young man whispered something in the girl's ear, and they giggled.

Young love, Greta mouthed at Patrick, who smirked, then covered it by reaching up to tug his cap over his eyes. "There!" she pronounced. "You're finished." Her fabricator beeped and spat out a cube, and the two lovers walked away with it, leaning excitedly into each other. Greta turned to Patrick, eying him evilly. "Look at that." She waved her hand, indicating the empty stall. "No customers. Why, I think I might have a slot free."

"_Greta_," Patrick said.

"For free, Patrick?" Greta said, batting her eyelashes ridiculously. "Just because I want your lovely face captured in my art forever."

"I--" Patrick winced, and she grinned. "Oh dear. Ah. How long does it take?" he asked, feeling his resolve melt.

"Ten minutes," she promised. "Come round! Sit, sit. Yes, exactly," she said as he entered the booth and took a seat on a small padded stool. "_Exactly_ like that." She picked up a digital pad and stylus. "Now, Patrick. Tell me. Who was your first lover?"

"Greta!" Patrick said.

"Ooh, that was a good one," Greta said, and her stylus started clicking happily across her tablet.

Half an hour later, Patrick was rocking back and forth on the stool, shaking with laughter. "_No_," he choked out. "That _can't_ be true! No one would have that bad of taste! You have to be making that up."

Greta put her hand to her heart. "I swear!" she declaimed. "Ribbons and _everything_." She looked back at her screen and smiled. "There. That's better."

"What?" Patrick asked.

"I like it better when you smile," she said. "You don't look so nervous like you did when we first met, like I was going to eat you."

"Well, no, but you see, you might have had cannibalistic tendencies," Patrick said. "I didn't have all the information."

She laughed and shook her head, and Patrick admired the way the sunlight called lighter highlights out to gild the curls and the waves caught back from her face in a clip at the back of her head. She was pretty like one of her works of art, he thought, but earthier.

"What now?" Patrick asked.

Greta bit at the end of her stylus, squinting between him and it. "I'm making you an extra-special picture. Being that it's your first time vacationing in Angelia."

"I could be lying," Patrick said lightly, but Greta looked at him intently, and then shook her head.

"No," she said. "I don't think so."

"It's that obvious?"

She smiled. "A little."

"Yes," Patrick agreed. Greta didn't say anything in return, frowning slightly in concentration and tapping occasionally on her tablet screen, so Patrick just sat, enjoying the slight breeze on his face, watching pedestrians walk by, and turning back to look at Greta every once in a while. He found Greta's company was soothingly straightforward after days spent trying to discover the source of Brendon's worries, and nights spent trailing around after him and his friends, feeling like a crow in a flock of parrots. She simply wanted to make his portrait, and for him to enjoy himself while she did so.

Greta looked up from her worked, and her mouth quirked. She leaned toward him and whispered, "Someone has an admirer."

"Ah?" Patrick raised his eyebrows, leaning toward her. "Really, though, Greta, you must be used to that by now."

"Not me, silly." She tilted her chin, pointing off to the right, behind Patrick's head. "You."

"You artists and your overactive imagination," Patrick said. He glanced over his shoulder involuntarily, only to pause, twisted in his seat. It was Pete Wentz, standing only a short distance away, incongruous in the dappled sunshine, looking at him. Patrick didn't know why he should recognize Pete so readily, because the club had been dimly lit, but he did, immediately and unmistakably. Pete was dressed almost respectably this morning, in a finely cut coat and conservative hat, except for the indecently tight fit of his trousers. Patrick could practically trace the individual muscles of his thighs from hip to knee through the thin fabric, and jerked his eyes away when he realized he was staring, only to meet Pete's amused eyes. Patrick's face grew warm, but he tried to keep his expression blank. Pete obviously wanted to be looked at; Patrick wouldn't apologize for having done what he wanted.

"Mr Wentz," Patrick said, and raised his hand in belated greeting.

"I was Pete the other night," Pete said, walking closer.

"I'm sorry," Patrick said. "Pete. I didn't expect to see you again. Can I introduce you to my friend, Greta Salpeter?"

"Greta." Pete shook her extended hand. "I was just admiring your. Work."

Greta caught Patrick's eye for a second, then said, "Why, thank you! Do you care for holo-pictures, Mr. Wentz?"

"I like a little bit of everything," Pete said, picking up one of the cubes and pressing the button on top, then passing his finger through the resultant holo. "I don't know much about the art form, though."

"If you come round the side, you can watch while I finish Patrick's portrait. You don't mind, do you, Patrick?"

Patrick stared hard at Greta, but she just widened her eyes at him, and he said helplessly, "No, of course not."

The rest of the portrait session was deeply uncomfortable for Patrick. Though Pete engaged Greta in conversation, inquiring about techniques and the holo-drafting program, Patrick was entirely too aware of Pete watching him. He glanced over, meeting Pete's eyes. Though Pete's tone was civil, his gaze was not, mocking and direct, with a faint smile dancing on his lips, like Patrick was an amusing curiosity. Patrick tightened his jaw and didn't look away. Pete was, he thought, a distinctly unsettling person to know, and Patrick was determined not to let it show.

They stayed like that for several minutes in a strange, fixed tableau, while Patrick's ears grew warmer and warmer, and the smile spread from Pete's mouth to his eyes. Conversation dried up between Pete and Greta, leaving the booth a small, silent pocket amid the noise of the thoroughfare.

Finally, Greta said, "There," sounding triumphant, and set down her tablet and stylus. Patrick, startled, broke away and looked at her. He'd almost forgotten there was a point to this.

His expression in the cube, when he got it, was disconcerting, mouth unsmiling, head held high, jaw jutting forward. He looked almost fierce. "Uh, thank you," he said, closing the display and shoving the cube in his coat pocket. "It's. It's very nice. You're quite an artist."

"Yes," Pete said, and Patrick darted a glance at him warily. Pete leaned over and whispered something in Greta's ear that made her laugh. They made a striking picture together, black head against blond, and Patrick swallowed a bitter taste in his mouth.

"Oh," he said, glancing at his timekeeper in feigned surprise. "I'm sorry, it's later than I thought. I have to be moving on. Greta, I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Oh!" Greta said, extending a hand. Pete straightened up and stepped away, and so Patrick approached and kissed her goodbye on the cheek. "Tomorrow," she said, her hand gripping his tightly, then releasing.

Pete fell into step with him as he walked away. "Which direction are you headed?" he asked. "Never mind, come, have lunch with me instead."

"Ah," Patrick said, casting about for an excuse.

Pete raised his eyebrows, huffing a breath through his nose. "You won't eat with me?"

"I...I hardly know you." Patrick worried at the sharp edge of cube in his pocket through the thin fabric of his coat.

"No," Pete mused. "And you don't want to. Do you?"

"I--" Patrick stopped. It wasn't, precisely, true.

"Did your brother tell you about me?" Pete asked, not sounding like he cared one way or the other. He had his hands inelegantly dipped into his tight trouser pockets, shoulders hunched and wrinkling the line of his jacket, like a boy forced into adult clothing.

"No," Patrick said, though he had. Brendon had elaborated in great detail on the trouble associated with Pete Wentz. The stories of dirty wealth, gambling, debauchery, and crime that had seemed so plausible in the dark of Brendon's dorm room on the tail end of a disorienting interplanetary trip seemed much less so in the light of day. "No, I just. Didn't expect to see you again after the other day. Angelia City isn't small."

"Not like...where was it? New Trier?"

"Yes," Patrick said. "And, no. They're not alike at all. New Trier, I mean."

"This way," Pete said, taking Patrick's arm and steering him toward a small restaurant. Patrick stiffened, feeling shadows of their first meeting, but let him, and Pete let go as soon as they entered the door. "Upstairs, I think," he said, and turned to grin at Patrick. "They have a floating balcony. It's a crime to not use it on a day like today."

Patrick made a noncommittal noise and followed him as he spoke quickly and quietly to the waiter, then motioned for Patrick to precede him through the door in the back, where a lift brought them up to a small platform, then to a checkerboard arrangement of tables floating in apparently-empty air twenty feet above a cultivated garden.

"Do you dislike heights?" Pete asked, strolling off the platform. Patrick couldn't quite make himself follow him, and so Pete stopped halfway to one of the tables, turning to look at Patrick.

Patrick licked his lips. "I'm not quite used to them like this," he muttered, and stepped gingerly out, trying not to look at the shrub lurking below his feet. The field he was walking on felt as solid as pavement underneath him, and he took one step, then another, and walked as quickly as he could to the table.

Pete grinned at him when he sat down. "This is one of my favorite places in the city."

"Oh," Patrick said. The table's surface was a shining composite alloy, transparent to the eye. Patrick stared down at his own knees, then at his shoes, planted firmly on nothing, and looked up, resolving not to look back down.

"What's it like?" Pete asked.

"Damned unsettling," Patrick muttered, and Pete laughed, rocking back in his chair, forcing a smile out of Patrick.

"I meant your home," he said, smiling.

"New Trier?" Patrick blinked. Pete nodded. "Uh. It's mostly manufacturing facilities. Research labs. Solar farms. It's not tremendously hospitable, really."

Over lunch, Pete asked questions, and Patrick found himself describing about his job as a quality assurance tech in one of the optics factories and telling Pete about the small suite of rooms he shared with his roommate in the housing complex in one of the atmosphere-controlled regions of the planet. He couldn't see why Pete should care, but he did seem to, following up each question with a barrage of others that were almost child-like in their simplicity, touching on such aspects as whether New Trier settlements allowed pets, if it ever rained in the atmosphere-controlled sections, and where their food came from. His curiosity finally petered out toward the end of the meal, and he sat back in his chair, turning to look out at the green rolling hills that housed the University.

"It's interesting to think about, isn't it?" Pete mused, and Patrick, his mouth full, made a wordless noise of inquiry. "How different our lives are in ways we take for granted. I think sometimes humanity is amazing."

"Mm," Patrick said, baffled.

Pete laughed briefly, turning back to Patrick. "And then I wake up and remember."

"We've done amazing things," Patrick said. "The human race has."

"Reached the stars, cured disease, eliminated hunger," Pete listed on his fingers. "And yet, it always comes back to the lowest common denominator."

Patrick shrugged his shoulders. "I think it depends on what one chooses to look at."

"Fair enough," Pete said, losing the distance in his gaze, suddenly and surprisingly present. "It wasn't hard, you know," he said.

"I'm sorry?" Patrick frowned, feeling that he'd missed a sentence.

"Finding you," Pete said. "It wasn't hard. Vid nodes are flexible."

Patrick blinked. "Not usually." He crossed his arms over his chest.

"Oh, well." Pete waved that away with his hand. "In any case, Mr Urie wasn't hard to find. Meeting you today, though. That was fortuitous."

"Why are you telling me this?" Patrick asked, feeling the conversation pitch and yaw away from him. He uncrossed his arms and set his forearms on the table, almost oversetting his water glass, and pulled his hands back awkwardly.

"I'm not sure." Pete tilted his head, looking over Patrick's shoulder. "Full disclosure, perhaps? Are you flattered?"

"No," Patrick said, flushing.

"Hm." Pete looked at him. "Lying to me so soon? At least I'm honest."

Patrick opened his mouth and closed it, then said, "I'm not flattered. I'm. Confused."

Pete raised his eyebrows sardonically, and Patrick pressed his lips into a thin line. Pete stared at him for a moment longer, before glancing down at the ruins of his entree. His voice was casual when he said, "Urie. Is that a double or single relation?"

"Single," Patrick said absently, still several exchanges back. "My mother. His father wanted parent-claim. For religious reasons."

"He's precocious," Pete said, toying with his fork. "I'm impressed."

"What?" Patrick frowned and leaned forward. "I don't understand." Brendon's test scores and scholastic performance had always been strictly average for his age and area of study.

"Why, his gambling. His slap-and-tickle with Lady Fortune." Patrick shook his head, and Pete's eyes grew wide with merriment. "Oh, brilliant!" he said, choking out, "you mean, you mean you didn't know?" between bursts of laughter.

"What," Patrick said with rude abruptness.

Pete shook his head, still laughing, and Patrick clenched his hands on the edge of the table, resisting the urge to stand and leave.

"Oh," Pete said finally. "This has _definitely_ been worth the price of buying you lunch."

"I'm afraid I don't understand what. What are you telling me?" Patrick asked quietly.

"Gambling," Pete said, amusement still written large on his handsome face. "It's been a while since I've seen such spectacular debts from a first-year University student."

"I'm sorry." Patrick groped for his water glass. "How much?"

"One hundred thousand credits," Pete said, and Patrick knocked over his glass.

 

* * *

 

"How," Patrick said. Brendon sat in front of him on his cot while Patrick paced the length of the room. "Gaming, Brendon? _Gaming_. I don't _understand_. How could--Why didn't you _ tell_ me?"

"It wasn't your problem," Brendon mumbled.

"I very much beg to differ!" Patrick shouted. "This isn't--Brendon. This isn't like you hiding your broken toys. This is _serious_. If it's a valid claim, you could get sent to the gaol!"

Brendon hunched his shoulders, staring at the floor.

Patrick shook his head. "One hundred thousand credits. Did you even have a plan for how to pay it back?" Brendon said something inaudible. "No," Patrick said, and ran his hand through his hair. "No, because _I_ don't even know how we're going to pay it back. My God, why did you even start? Was it a mistake?"

"No," Brendon said miserably. "I didn't." He threaded his fingers together, staring blindly at them. "I didn't--I was just having fun, all right? It wasn't supposed to be for stakes, really, I promise you it wasn't. I'm not sure how. I must have--I wasn't in my right mind that night. But it's mine." He glanced up defiantly. "And I'll pay it."

"How," Patrick snapped.

"I don't know! Somehow!" Brendon yelled, a ragged edge of anguish in his voice. He brought his hands up and covered his face.

Patrick looked away. Outside in the hall, footsteps pounded past, and a muffled snatch of conversation filtered into the room.

"Is that how the vid got broken?" Patrick said finally.

"Yes," Brendon said. He dropped his hands. "After. I awoke in my bed in the clothes I'd worn that night, with no memory of going back to my room. I. The credit voucher was in my pocket."

"With your thumb print?" Patrick said quietly.

"Do I look--" Brendon stopped and swallowed, doubtless knowing Patrick's response to that question. "Yes," he said, scarcely audible. "I checked. And then three days later Mr Perola's bullyboys came."

"Can you invalidate it?" Patrick asked. "At home--"

Brendon shook his head. "I tried," he said. "I swear, I did try. The magistrate just laughed at me." He stared down at his hands.

Patrick leaned back against the wall, sliding down until he hit the floor, sitting opposite Brendon with his knees bent, feet flat against the ground.

"What are we going to do?" Brendon whispered.

Patrick shook his head, unable to speak.

 

**3.**

 

Brendon's room felt alien and small around Patrick, too loud with all the words they weren't saying to each other, so Patrick left it, finally, taking his cap and coat with his ID and code cards. He left Brendon behind staring sightlessly into space, still sitting on the cot, his fingers knotting and unknotting around the rumpled sheets.

Patrick walked aimlessly for hours, until his feet were sore and his legs were tired, and then he turned into the first vid-kiosk he saw, an open, airy structure in the center of a manicured garden with the vid-ports arranged in small grottos sculpted and gardened to look like the outside. Privacy screens shimmered discreetly out of the corner of his eye as he turned his head.

He called his mother first, numbly giving assurances that everything was fine, yes, Brendon was fine, was doing well, that he had decided to stretch out his trip and not to worry.

"I've heard it's beautiful," his mother said, relaxing. "But, Patrick! Where are you calling from? It must be so expensive," and Patrick had to bite his lip hard to keep from falling into hysterical laughter.

"It's fine, Mother," he said. Truly, the cost of a vid call, even at this extravagant location, was hardly a fraction of Brendon's debt. He shook his head sharply. "I thought. You might want to see something nice. It is beautiful here," he said wistfully.

"Good," his mother said, sounding happy, and Patrick ended the call quickly.

He recorded a long, rambling message for Bob and sent it, ignoring the macro that tried to tell him Bob was on and available for conversation. It was unfair to Bob, but Patrick couldn't find it in himself to care. Bob would forgive him.

Finally, reluctantly, he turned to the Angelia node. Pete, he found, was popular but elusive. Trails of search terms and contacts led to dead ends, until it felt like Patrick had seen thousands of holo shots and sentence fragments, pictures of Pete from every angle, but never a location or a vid code. He wasn't in the directory. Patrick had no skill with vid searches, unpracticed at sifting through the detritus of vid traffic to the underlying logic beneath it, but desperation gave him persistence, and after two hours, he tracked the whispers to an unlabeled vid code.

He rolled his shoulders, rubbing at his weary eyes. The afternoon had faded into evening outside the grotto while he worked, and lamps were lighting all over the garden and park, lending it a dreamy air. Patrick shook his head, banishing the thought.

He input the vid code quickly, fingers moving with a decisiveness he didn't share, and wasn't surprised when the vid screen flashed, "Unlisted," at him, before connecting him to a black, unmirrored privacy blocker. He licked his lips and leaned forward. "Hello. Ah. This is Patrick Stump, wishing to contact Mr, ah, I mean, Pete Wentz? If you could relay my, um, greetings, I'd be much obliged." His mouth twitched in a nervous smile, and he clenched his hands at his sides. No one answered, and after a moment, he recited the vid code number from the top of his port, jerked his hand in an aborted salute at his forehead, and ended the call.

Less than a minute passed before the vid screen flashed a text message, _meet one hour, 135-09874. -plkw_

 

* * *

 

Patrick arrived early at the address Pete had provided, and was unsurprised to find that it was a small, shabby club. A bar lined one wall, privacy-screened booths the others. The center of the room, Patrick noted with a stab of black humor, was dominated by gaming tables, already populated despite the unfashionably early hour.

He took a seat at the bar, ordering a coffee despite the barman's obvious disgust, and settled in to wait. At first, he turned, head jerking over his shoulder at every new person who walked in the door, but the minutes ticked by, until Patrick was at Pete's hour and more. It was so utterly beyond the pale, Patrick thought wearily, that he had even expected Pete to come. They weren't friends, had only met a handful of times, but Pete had seemed. He'd thought Patrick was interesting, and he was a powerful person, Patrick had found out, powerful and rich. Brendon's rumors had held truth there, despite his other unlikely claims. Patrick had hoped.

He wasn't looking when Pete arrived, playing with the handle on his china cup, and he startled badly when Pete took a seat beside him, almost spilling the last of the coffee out onto the bar.

"So," Pete said, speaking over the music playing in the hall. "Patrick."

"Pete," Patrick said. "I. Thank you for coming."

Pete quirked an eyebrow, smirking. "Your message intrigued me."

"Yes," Patrick said, and hesitated. "Would you care for something to drink?" He waved at the bar.

"Are you offering?" Pete asked. "I tell you what. Why don't I buy my own, yes? I think you may be a little short on funds soon."

Patrick flushed, ducking his head. "You know we can't pay it," he muttered. "The sum is monstrously huge. This debtor, this Mr Perola, he's a villain to let a student bet so high. I can't imagine."

"No," Pete said, grimacing, and Patrick thought he might say something about it, but he swiveled in his seat instead to lean with his back to the bar, not looking at Patrick. His fingers tapped in time to the music, something soft with sweeping notes, as he focused on an exuberant game occurring at one of the tables. He added absently, "Was there anything else?"

"I was hoping for your advice," Patrick said quietly, staring into his coffee cup. "I'm afraid I don't quite know what to do. I'm unfamiliar with Angelia City. He's just a boy, you know."

"He's reached his majority," Pete pointed out. He leaned forward, looking intently at the game. "Ah, I think that one's going to swing," he added, sounding gleeful. "Deadly uncivilized, but." He grinned over his shoulder at Patrick. "We can't all be civilized."

Patrick shook his head. Across the room, two men began shouting, and the table erupted when one of the men punched the other in the face, sending him reeling back into the table behind him. Patrick turned back to the bar, averting his eyes.

"Oh, now," Pete said, clapping his hand on Patrick's shoulder. "It's not so bad, you see? They're being ejected."

"I'm sorry," Patrick said tightly, pressing his fingers to the bridge of his nose. "I find myself a bit preoccupied."

"Oh. Yes. That." When Patrick looked up, Pete was looking at him steadily. "What, precisely, did you want me to do?"

"I. I was hoping you might know someone I could talk to," Patrick said. "It-it can't be legal, what they did. There must be some way to invalidate it."

"No," Pete said. "Angelia laws are quite clear, actually. Your brother shouldn't have gambled."

"He was drugged," Patrick said. "Doesn't that matter?"

"And how do you expect to prove it?" Pete asked, sounding only mildly curious. Patrick hunched his shoulders, and Pete said, "No. I didn't think so."

Patrick wetted his dry lips. "Is there a moneylender we could use?"

"None that you'd care to," Pete said. "Slavery isn't legal in Angelia, but that doesn't stop everyone."

Patrick swallowed.

"Of course," Pete said. "There's another option, I suppose." He pressed his fingers to his lower lip. "You would have to be interested, of course."

"What," Patrick said. "What is it?"

Pete shrugged. "Your brother could pass his debt over to me. I could pay it."

Patrick closed his eyes. "Why would you do that?" he asked, his voice barely louder than the music.

Pete leaned into him, trailing his hand up the nape of Patrick's neck. "I can't simply be a philanthropist? Help my fellow man?" His fingers traced circles on Patrick's skin, and Patrick sat very still, trying not to move away.

"You seem to have a singularly low opinion of your fellow man," Patrick said. "I don't think you're a humanitarian."

Pete leaned closer, lips right next to Patrick's ear. "I'm sure you'll be able to think of a way to repay me."

Patrick flinched away, and the song playing in the hall changed to something with a hard, fast, loud rhythm. He could see Pete's mouth moving, but couldn't make out the words. The room felt suddenly hot, and he sucked in a breath, staring down at the polished surface of the bar, where his own pale face stared back at him, eyes wide and dark under his hat. It was so much money. So much money, and his brother was so young in ways Patrick had never been, crazy dance clubs notwithstanding.

Patrick swallowed. "I." His voice cracked, and he stopped. "The money. I can't--I'll never be able to pay you back."

Pete laughed and took his hand away, leaving the back of Patrick's neck feeling cold and oversensitive. "I think I know that."

"How does this work," Patrick asked softly.

"Get the voucher," Pete said, standing. He reached into his pocket and retrieved a plastic chip, sliding it under Patrick's fingers. "Use this to call me." He touched Patrick's cheek, and Patrick looked up. Pete bent and kissed him, once on the cheek, lightly, then the mouth, lingering there until Patrick found himself kissing back, feeling Pete's fingers tighten slightly against his jaw. Pete broke away, kissing Patrick on the cheek once more, and was gone.

Patrick touched his mouth with the back of his hand. He could still feel the shocking softness of Pete's mouth against his and the treacherous slick slide of Pete's tongue, and when he looked up, he was almost surprised to remember that he was still in the club.

At the center of the room, the gamers played on, oblivious. Patrick tightened his hand around the plastic chip on the bar, scooping it into his palm.

"Sir," the bartender said expressionlessly. "More coffee?"

"Thank you, no," Patrick said, standing up, trying to stop the nerves burning in his stomach. "I'm quite finished. Thank you."

 

* * *

 

"You can put your bag in here," Pete said, motioning toward a darkened room. "Make yourself at home." He stood in the center of the main room, voucher in hand, poking at it. Brendon had been out when Patrick returned, a small blessing, and Patrick had been able to steal the voucher from where it was hidden in the back of a shelf without answering any awkward question.

"Thank you," Patrick said. The apartment looked like a standard set of living quarters, though sparsely furnished and entirely undecorated. Pete had led him silently to this address, one hand low on Patrick's back, ushering him through the tube system. All the drawers and closets in the bedroom were empty when Patrick checked. Pete didn't live here, though he seemed to own it. Patrick wondered how many of these suites Pete had, then shut that thought down. It was irrelevant. He kept his back to the bed, and set his satchel gently against the wall.

"How will I know that you've paid the debt?" he asked, returning to the main room.

"Well, you could trust me," Pete said, frowning down at the voucher. He pulled a small chip out of his back pocket and jammed it into a port on the side of the voucher. He tapped the screen once, then twice in rapid succession, let out a, "Hah!" and motioned Patrick closer. "See, there." He latched onto Patrick's wrist. Patrick stared down at the screen, feeling Pete's fingers warm against his skin.

"Transaction complete," a cheaply-computerized voice said from the voucher, and it powered down, becoming nothing more than a dull grey square in Pete's hand. On the side, the chip Pete had put in began to pulse arrhythmically.

"There," Pete said. "Believe me?"

"What's that?" Patrick asked, reaching out and tapping the chip.

"Insurance," Pete said, and tossed the dead voucher on a table behind him. "It's a lot of money, after all. We wouldn't want it going to the wrong place."

"Oh, yes," Patrick said. "No."

Pete looked up and smiled, wrinkles crinkling around his eyes and warming them. "Don't look so nervous," he said, running his hand up and down Patrick's arm before linking their fingers.

Patrick cleared his throat. "I am. Grateful for what you've done."

"I know," Pete said, bringing Patrick's hand to his lips. His lips tickled the back of it, and it should have been ridiculous, Patrick having his hand kissed, but Patrick sucked in a breath and didn't feel like laughing.

"Show me," Pete said quietly, watching him.

Patrick dropped his eyes to the floor. His hand tightening on Pete's, and he stepped backwards toward the bedroom, watching their feet move opposite each other, almost like dancing. Pete stopped just inside the door, and so Patrick did as well.

"Show me," Pete repeated. His arm flexed, pulling Patrick in, and Patrick found himself following as smoothly as if he'd been taught the steps to this dance. He put his hand on the strong curve of Pete's shoulder. They stood eye to eye, separated by a bare hand's breadth of space. Pete was his height. Patrick glanced at Pete's mouth, remembering, and it was so much harder than he had anticipated, leaning forward to offer himself to Pete, instead of having his affection taken.

Pete's mouth opened immediately under his, his hand releasing Patrick's hand and sliding up Patrick's back, pressing them closer through their layers of clothing. His mouth was hot, flickering against Patrick's, as they kissed, building a rhythm, and Patrick's hand knotted in Pete's hair at the nape of his neck. Patrick pressed his hand to the wall by Pete's shoulder, leaning in, feeling cool wood against his palm, and then Pete's mouth trailed down, biting at his neck, and he let out a groan, head falling sideways.

They lay in bed together afterward, and Pete pressed his lips to Patrick's shoulder and told him that the door was coded for him, before rolling up to sit on the edge of the bed. Pete had kept the lights on the entire time, and so when Patrick turned to face Pete, he could see clearly the marks he'd made on Pete's neck and side when Pete fucked him, when he'd gasped, rearing up to sink his teeth into Pete's shoulder until Pete had sworn harshly, pinning him down and kissing him, all rough teeth and slick heat.

Pete bent, and Patrick followed the line of his shoulders, the flex of muscles under his skin, and the quick movements of his arms as he dressed. His hair was disarranged from Patrick's hands. Pete stood, buckling his heavy belt and shrugging into his vest, running his hands through his hair until it lay smoothly again. When he turned around, he looked like the man Patrick had met outside the club a bare few days ago, and Patrick lay covered in the sheets, naked.

"That number I gave you," Pete said. "It will reach me anywhere. I'll." He stopped, glancing around. "Get something for this place. It's like a tomb."

"Thank you," Patrick said. Pete looked at him for a long moment, hand moving at his side like he was going to touch him. Patrick took a breath, bracing himself, but Pete let his hand drop, turning away and leaving the room. The outer door slammed a second later.

Patrick waited, unsure of the rules governing his new position, but Pete didn't return, and so Patrick slid out of bed and padded to the bathroom, shivering slightly as he struggled to work the controls for the shower unit.

"He's given me a bathroom I can't use," Patrick muttered, and then had to stop and brace his head on the stall door as he laughed in helpless, hysterical bursts before sliding down to kneel on the cool floor. "Oh God," he said at last, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. He would have to call home. Make arrangements. Quit his job.

"All right," he said, "all right." He got to his feet, showered, and changed into the trunks and undershirt he slept in, stripping the bed of the soiled sheets. The room smelled like sex, and Patrick couldn't find another set of linens or a laundry unit, so he laid the blankets down on the bare mattress, running a wondering hand over it, pressing slightly to feel the give. He turned the light off and lay for a long time in the dark, looking at the ceiling, before finally drifting off to sleep.


	2. A Common Understanding (2/3)

**4.**

 

Patrick found that time lay heavily on his shoulders these days. Walking the streets of Angelia City quickly began to tire, but the apartment closed in narrowly around him some days, even after Pete began sending over rugs, wall hangings, cushions for the couches. Pete didn't know anything about him, Patrick thought, didn't know that Patrick would have preferred an armchair to a sofa, white walls to yellow, and didn't really care about any of that as long as he had something to do throughout the day. Patrick hadn't loved his work, but he had like having something to get up for in the morning.

He watched hours of holovids on the shiny, new projector Pete brought over. The first time Pete had stayed to watch one with him, he'd curled close on the sofa, feeling obligated. Pete gave him a slanted smile, and Patrick wondered if Pete saw his discomfort, then wondered how he couldn't. The holo was a subtle faeton shadow play, though, and Patrick quickly lost himself in the intricacies of gesture and double-barbed dialogue until Pete's hand came down and brushed at his hip, fingers rubbing idly over the sensitive skin. Pete didn't do anything else, though, his eyes still fixed on the holo when Patrick tilted his head to look. He didn't touch with intent until the program had ended, and then he tumbled Patrick onto his back on the couch and kissed him, Patrick's arms pressed to the cushions above his head, their hips undulating together until Patrick was panting, and he said, "Please, come on," hand jerking against Pete's hold on his wrist.

Pete liked kissing, Patrick discovered, would do it longer than any lover Patrick had ever had, and he sometimes said things like, "God, your mouth," before biting at Patrick's lower lip. He liked Patrick's mouth on him, liked when Patrick took initiative and pushed him back against the headboard and unbuttoned his trousers, stroked him hard and blew him. His hands would come down, grasping at Patrick's hair, stroking down his own thigh and stomach, clenching at the sheets. It undid him more than anything, more, even than fucking, or perhaps Patrick just had more attention to spare this way. Regardless, he liked watching Pete Wentz come unwoven. He was always a little unguarded afterwards, would watch Patrick with sleepy eyes, hand moving softly over Patrick's cock as he jerked him off, and sometimes would ask Patrick to fuck him, pliable from his orgasm and easily directed.

Pete varied his visits according to no schedule Patrick anticipate. Sometimes he would come by four nights in a row, unannounced by anything other than the scrape of his shoes across the floor, staying through the night and into the morning so that Patrick grew accustomed to waking up and finding him there, tapping at his portable vidder. Then he would let days drift past between visits, and Patrick would sleep poorly for a few nights before settling back into the solitary patterns he'd lived his life in before.

They ate at an outdoor cafe one morning for breakfast. Pete was in an expansive mood upon arousing and forced him up and out of bed despite Patrick's grumbles, throwing clothes at him and chivvying him through his morning ablutions. He settled once they arrived at the cafe, seeming content to read the daily folio while Patrick sipped sleepily on a cup of tea and picked at a scone, avoiding the currants, reading the shifting news headlines upside down as Pete scrolled through the sections that interested him. Business, cosmological events, entertainment.

"Why get the currants if you shan't eat them?" Pete asked, stealing one from Patrick's plate. "You could have gotten a plain one."

Patrick yawned, then said from behind his hand, "I didn't know I didn't like them."

"Just get another," Pete said.

"I don't want another one," Patrick said. "I can pick these out, it's fine."

Pete opened his mouth to say something, then shrugged, looking back at the news. "Oh, listen. That holo star you like was in a racing accident."

"I don't _like_ her," Patrick said, flushing. "I said she did a good job with a challenging role." He leaned forward to look. "Was it bad?"

"Doesn't say," Pete said absently. He frowned, lips moving silently.

"What," Patrick said, but Pete appeared to be looking at an article about changes in Angelian rules governing data tracking.

"Nothing," Pete said, not looking up, and Patrick sat back in his chair, turning to look at the foot traffic passing by on the street.

"Pete," Patrick began after a moment of silent debate. Pete looked away from the folio. "Is there anything I can...be doing?"

"I'm sorry," Pete said blankly.

Patrick opened his hands. "I'm not...accustomed to having this much free time. Is there anything I should be doing?"

"What, like a job?" Pete asked. His mouth quirked at the corners.

"Well, I mean," Patrick said. "I guess. Yes."

"As long as you're there when I want you, I don't care what you do," Pete said, and went back to his folio.

Patrick grimaced, his appetite vanishing. He pushed his plate with its half-finished scone away.

"Oh, what," Pete said, setting down the folio.

"Nothing," Patrick said, disgusted at himself forgetting what he was, what they both were. Pete made it easy sometimes, to pretend. "What else is new today?"

Pete read him the newest headline, and Patrick stared out at the street. A little girl with a Cosmo the Cosmic Space Dust Dragon coverall was playing at the table next to theirs, crouched down on the cobbled pavement with a little robot toy, making it climb imaginary hills. He smiled a little, remembering mornings spent elbowing Brendon for the best spot under their shaky holovid player.

"What," Pete asked. "What's amusing?"

Patrick shook his head, then jerked his chin toward the little girl, and watched Pete's face soften slightly.

"You know, everyone always liked Cosmo, but I loved his sidekick, Solar Flare," Pete said, turning back and grinning. Patrick's eyebrows rose, and Pete snorted. "Even _I_ watched children's programs, Stump."

"No, I know," Patrick said, but it was a hard thing to imagine, still. Even now, spending every night in his bed, Patrick knew so little about him that it was hard not to think of Pete as having simply appeared from the Angelian earth, full-grown.

"He had that attack," Pete said. "He never needed saving. Ever."

"No," Patrick agreed. "Still. I liked Cosmo, though. He was noble."

"He was a _dragon_," Pete said, sounding disgusted.

"Exactly," Patrick said, and left it at that.

 

* * *

 

He went back to Greta's stall often during the day. Since he had no set schedule, he was free to make his hours of his own choosing, and so he frequently visited during the late afternoon, when business was slow and heading toward the end of the day, and he could help her break down the booth, packing away the fragile portrait cubes and landscapes for travel back to her family's studio.

"Angelia City's treating you well," she said, stopping him at one point and putting her hand on his sleeve. Patrick glanced down. He was wearing a green jacket Pete had picked out for him. It was made of soft, expensive fabric and shimmered under the fading sun.

"Oh," Patrick said, flushing. "It was a gift."

"You have a generous friend," Greta said, looking at him for a long moment. She had, Patrick was reminded, lived on Angelia her entire life and was infinitely more familiar with its ways than he.

"Yes," Patrick said. "Ah. Where do you want this?" He hefted a case.

"Put it with the other full-body portraits," she said, turning away and tapping at her lower lip. "I think...tomorrow, I think I bring more animals. The children love them, and I nearly sold out today."

"Animals," Patrick agreed. "Universally beloved, I believe."

"Did you ever have any pets?" Greta asked. Her hands moved busily, packing away her machine. "I never did. So expensive."

"No," Patrick said. "New Trier doesn't allow them, too much of a strain on settlement resources. I did find and keep a ground lizard for a few weeks when I was little, though."

"Ground lizard?" Greta raised an eyebrow.

"They're pests," Patrick supplied. He shook his head, laughing. "It caused such an infestation. I thought my mother would never forgive me."

"Pests, pets." Greta weighed the two options out in her hands. "I'm sure you just became confused."

"Would you believe, I tried explaining that?" Patrick said. "And yet, somehow."

"A hellion," Greta murmured. They loaded the last crate onto her floating pallet and began walking slowly down the street, side by side with the pallet. Patrick crooked his arm with a little duck of his head, and Greta placed her hand in it, smiling at him. They walked in comfortable silence for a little while, and then she said, "Angelia City is treating you well, but you don't look happy."

"I'm not...unhappy," Patrick said cautiously.

"Patrick," she said. "Do you know what you're doing?"

Patrick huffed out a laugh. "Oh, yes."

"Does your brother?"

Patrick didn't say anything.

"I wish I'd never let him stay at the booth," Greta muttered, scowling blackly at the ground.

"Oh, Greta, no," Patrick said.

"Well, I do," she insisted.

"He isn't a bad man," Patrick said, thinking of the care with which Pete touched him.

"He isn't a good one," Greta said.

"No," Patrick agreed. He shook his head. "I'm not unhappy, Greta."

"All right," she said, but her eyes were troubled when she looked at him.

"Enough of that," Patrick said. He patted her hand. "Tell me about Joe."

"He took me out dancing the other night," Greta said, face lightening. "Did I tell you that?"

"Why, no, I don't think you did," Patrick said. "Can he dance? I'm all feet when I try."

"He tries," Greta said. She laughed. "That's all I ask, really. The place we went, it was all formal, and I got to wear my mother's dress. She did up my hair and everything. You should have seen his face when he saw me."

"So I shan't have to call him out, then," Patrick said.

"Patrick!" Greta hit him on the shoulder with her hard little fist. "_In fact_, I think you would like him if you met him."

They had arrived at the Salpeter compound. Patrick stepped back, disengaging, and let her go past him to the gate.

"Patrick," she called, turning toward him in a whirl of skirts. "Come out with us tonight! Dinner and the Pretian Dancing Conservatory."

"Oh," Patrick said. "I'm not sure--"

"Please," she coaxed, drawing the word out. "He won't begrudge you that, surely?"

"No, of course not," Patrick said with greater surety than he felt.

"Well, then," Greta said. "Here, your vid code, I'll send you the restaurant later."

"No, here," Patrick said, taking his portable vidder out of his pocket. He bent his head, ignoring her look, and created a memo. She gave the address without further commentary, and he took his leave.

He stood for a long moment in front of his vid port that evening. It rankled, the thought of calling Pete and asking permission to have a night out. It made him feel like a-a whore. In the end, he left his rooms without calling, arriving at the restaurant just short of being late.

The gathering was large and convivial, being made up of not only the infamous Joe, but a wide variety of Greta's acquaintances and intimates. He wondered how many others of Greta's strays were at the table that night. Patrick found himself debating the merits of bodyart with Greta's cousin Chris, a fair, slight boy scarcely older than Greta herself, with a head of dark flyaway hair.

"I simply think it can be gaudy when overused," Patrick argued.

"Well, _yes_," Chris said scathingly, a spark of good humor taking the sting from his words. "That's the nature of color. So too with clothing, but I don't see you wearing black."

"I don't precisely need to look paler," Patrick said.

Chris took hold of Patrick's sleeve, pulling it back to reveal his wrist. "You'd be a lovely canvas," he said.

Patrick looked at him, imagining Chris's thin, expressive face painted like some of the club goers he'd seen, made exotic and startling. "I think I prefer the classic look," he said lightly.

"I have some designs. Subtle, almost conservative," Chris wheedled.

"Are you trying to talk Patrick into modeling for you?" Greta asked, hanging over Chris's chair back. "It took me _forever_ to get him to sit for me."

"But _look_ at him," Chris said, and they swiveled in unison to stare at Patrick, Patrick quailing a bit under their combined regard.

"No," he said firmly. "Thank you, but no."

"It's hardly like being naked at all," Greta began, and laughed at Patrick's appalled expression.

"You should come and see my work sometime," Chris said after Greta had returned to her spot. "I have a shop in the arts district, near the parks."

"I, yes," Patrick said, conscious of Chris's hand still on his wrist, a polite, subtle invitation that he might once have taken advantage of. He slipped his hand discreetly away, then reached for the wine pitcher. "I shall, thank you."

Chris looked disappointed for a moment, but not upset, and merely asked, "But you, what do you do in Angelia City?"

"Oh," Patrick said, stumbling over his words. "I, ah. I'm on an-an extended holiday, I suppose. The fine arts, you know."

"Angelia's famous for them," Chris said. "And rightly so, by the way."

"Yes," Patrick said. "My brother. He studies at the University."

"Oh, in what?" Chris asked, appearing genuinely interested, and didn't seem to notice that Patrick spent the rest of the meal discussing Brendon's scholastic career.

When Patrick returned to his rooms in the early hours of the morning, he found them empty and dark, the bed undisturbed, and he couldn't decide if he was relieved or disappointed that Pete hadn't appeared to notice his absence.

 

**5.**

 

Brendon had accepted the news that Patrick was staying in Angelia City placidly after the great relief of finding out about his reprieve. Patrick had lied and said he'd found a connection with influence on the magistrate, who had then invalidated Brendon's debt, and Brendon hadn't pressed for details. Patrick had hinged his own further stay on Angelia on meeting up with an old friend. He allowed Brendon to visit the apartment only once, instead encouraging Brendon to simply call his vid when he wanted to meet for an afternoon.

"This is a fine place," Brendon said, standing in the main room. He turned in a circle, moving to the bookshelves to scan the lines of holovids and folios.

"It's, yes," Patrick muttered, coming out of the bedroom and closing the door quickly, hoping Brendon wouldn't notice the way the suite didn't have another bedroom. "It's a lease arrangement only," which wasn't precisely a lie. "Come, we're going to overrun our reservation."

Brendon let him shuffle him out the door with only one curious backwards glance. At lunch, Patrick asked questions about xenobotany, and listened to Brendon's litany of complaints about his villainous professors and their heinous deadlines. Patrick nodded and picked his way through a frankly disappointing salad with real tomatoes and a purple vegetable native to one of the outer planets that had a strange, fishy taste.

"...And, anyway, you don't really care, do you?" Brendon finished, grinning across the table at him. He stabbed at one of the purple vegetables on Patrick's plate with his fork and ate it, then made a face, and Patrick laughed. "Sometimes, this food," he said mournfully.

"You miss Mother's home-cooked insta-meals," Patrick said.

"At least then we knew what we were eating," Brendon pointed out, and Patrick opened his hand, conceding the point.

Behind Brendon's back, the door to the restaurant opened, and Patrick jerked in his chair as Pete walked in. He hadn't expected to see him, would have steered Brendon wide of the entire neighborhood if he'd known Pete frequented the place, but Pete had never mentioned it.

"What," Brendon asked, craning his head over his shoulder.

"Nothing, I just, I see someone I know," Patrick said.

Pete had seen them, Patrick knew, and raised his hand in greeting, hoping Pete would be kind enough to show discretion.

"Pete," Patrick said when he had gotten close enough. He extended a hand, and Pete took it with a quizzical expression, shaking it. "I'm not sure you've ever been _properly_ introduced. Brendon, Pete Wentz. Pete, may I introduce you to my brother, Brendon Urie?"

"Pleased to meet you," Brendon said stiffly, shaking Pete's hand.

"The same," Pete said, looking deeply amused.

"Are you here for tea?" Patrick asked, feeling artificial and as though every word he said shouted his deception.

"No, I've business with the manager," Pete said, sounding perfectly at ease. "Patrick, lovely to see you as always. Mr Urie. Enjoy your meal, gentlemen." He clapped Patrick's shoulder in parting, perfectly proper except for the finger he stroked over Patrick's shoulder blade, and wandered off, leaving Patrick trying not to blush noticeably.

As soon as he'd disappeared into the back room with the head waiter, Brendon leaned over his plate, hissing, "I didn't realize you'd stayed in touch!"

Only a little, Patrick wanted to say, but even he couldn't quite frame the lie, and so said, "He's an intriguing person," which was, at least, true. Patrick, feeling the meal had been rather ruined, and might as well end on as much of a high note as was left, called over their server, asking for the check.

"Oh, it's been taken care of," she said, drawing her curly black hair over her shoulder. "Mr Wentz said that he hopes you enjoyed the food."

"Ah," Patrick said. He pressed his lips in a thin line. It was, he supposed, more efficient than Patrick paying with the line of credit Pete had extended for him. "Give him my thanks. Thank you."

"Sir," she said, bobbing her head.

"I don't like it," Brendon muttered as they collected their hats and jackets, walking out into the street.

"It's fine," Patrick said shortly.

"Why does he take special notice of you?" Brendon asked, and Patrick wondered how much he'd seen. If he'd heard.

"He's a powerful man," Patrick said. "Powerful men like to show it."

"I wouldn't want him as my friend," Brendon said.

"_Brendon_," Patrick said, and Brendon subsided.

Later that night, as they lay in bed, Patrick asked Pete about it. The lights were already off, and Pete told him in a drowsy voice about the many businesses he invested in, the art galleries, cafes, and clubs he had a silent share in. "That's what I was asking your friend Greta about," Pete said into his pillow. "That first morning."

Patrick painted absent patterns on Pete's stomach, thinking. "You wanted her for one of your galleries?"

"She has talent," Pete muttered.

"She doesn't like you," Patrick confessed.

Pete turned in his arms so that he was flat on his back with Patrick's hand spread across his side. Patrick could see his smile dimly in the light from the window. "I know. She doesn't need to."

"You like that," Patrick accused. "You like that she dislikes you."

"She doesn't dislike me for my sake," Pete pointed out. "It's for yours. She's loyal. I like that." He covered his mouth, yawning. "I'm sure she'd like me for my sake." He brought his other hand up, covering Patrick's hand and interlacing their fingers. "I'm charming. Admit it."

"Occasionally," Patrick said, tugging his hand away. Pete held on, and Patrick set his hand flat again, feeling Pete's skin warm against his palm.

"Yes," Pete said, sounding on the edge of sleep. He sighed, and his breath settled into a slow rhythm under their joined hands.

Patrick lay awake for a little while longer, listening to it. His cheek sank into the pillow, his mind wandering towards sleep. In the darkness, it felt safe, and so he whispered, "Why did you do it?" The question he'd been wondering for ages.

Pete, asleep, didn't say anything, his breath fanning over Patrick's cheek. Patrick closed his eyes. Right before he fell asleep, he thought he heard Pete say, "I couldn't not," but it didn't seem connected to anything, just a random collection of sounds, and his mind drifted and then slid away into the dark.

 

* * *

 

Patrick missed New Trier more than he had expected. Angelia City was in perpetual summer, lush and decadent, and he would sometimes ride the public transport tubes long distances to where they would arch up over the city in shining filaments. He would look out the panoramic windows at the rolling green hills, Angelia City set in them like a brilliant jewel, and find himself wishing for New Trier's harsh barren landscape, that particular quality of light only found from New Trier's brighter sun filtered through the settlement polarizers. Greta's friends were amiable, and he'd gone to visit Chris and seen his portfolio of bodyart in all its dazzling and in some cases physiologically-defying glory, but he missed Bob's blunt speech and calm manner. He disliked having to measure each word against the possibility of being found out. Brendon appeared to see his discontent, but couldn't fathom the reason behind it.

"If you hate Angelia, go home," he said logically, lying on the floor on his stomach with a text and a workpad in front of him.

"I don't hate it," Patrick said. He sat on the bed in the sunshine, toying with Brendon's jar of colored data stones, spreading them into patterns on the coverlet and watching the way the translucent stones warped the lines of the blankets. "I simply, isn't there anything you miss, coming here?" He held a red stone up to the light.

"No," Brendon said, not looking up. He made a note on his pad. "Home was deadly dull."

"I see," Patrick said. "So you came here and found the most excitement you could."

"It wasn't like that," Brendon muttered.

Patrick scooped the data stones back in the jar and capped it, setting it on its shelf again, and rolled over onto his back, head on Brendon's pillow. He wasn't, truly, interested in rehashing old arguments. He'd made a point to ask Pete if Brendon had continued gaming, but he'd apparently lost his taste for it after his brush with disaster, and restricted himself to dance clubs instead. In any case, the late nights appeared to leave him none the worse for wear, and thus Patrick was content. He closed his eyes against the glare, stretching his arms and shoulders. Pete had been energetic the night before, leaving Patrick feeling slightly overused today.

"Have you had any more difficulty with Mr Perola?" he asked.

"No, thank God," Brendon said. "Though I heard a story at the club the other night. Overheard a group of people talking. Apparently he...makes a habit of it. Of what he did to me."

Patrick opened his eyes. "Really," he said carefully.

"It's--what sort of villain does that?" Brendon asked, sounding angry. "I'm not saying that it wasn't my fault, it was, of course it was, but to deliberately--to do that."

"I know," Patrick said. "I'm not--I can't explain it."

"I found out, there was a grand scandal a couple years ago," Brendon said, voice hushing. "Another student fell into arrears and killed himself to evade it."

"My God, Brendon," Patrick said, shaken. He sat up. "You wouldn't have done _that_, surely."

"No, no, of course not," Brendon said. "Blasted cowardly thing to do, I'd never. No." His voice lacked confidence, though, and Patrick remembered vividly how he'd looked those bare months ago, with his skin stretched taught over his bones, and couldn't be sure.

"Good," Patrick said. "Well, I'm glad you're well out of it." He lay back down on the bed. "What was the fellow's name?"

"Gabe S-something," Brendon said, attention drawn back to his work. "Savosa? Something."

"You're well out of it," Patrick repeated.

At home later, filled with a sort of morbid curiosity, he looked it up on the vid. Gabe Saporta had been a tall young man with short curly brown hair and bright eyes and a gawky sort of grace. Attractive, Patrick thought. He had an accent from one of the outer worlds, and had studied microsociological movements in long-voyage ships' crews, though he'd died before achieving his course of study. He was laughing in most of what Patrick found, eyes blurred with something, either liqueur or a stimulant. In the last shot, though, he was slumped down gracelessly in a tiled room (bathroom? Patrick wondered), legs sprawled across the floor, skin sallow against his dark hair and bright jacket, eyes staring at nothing while all around him forensics officers bustled in their official dark green jackets and masks.

Patrick slipped over to another stream and startled back from the screen, fingers slipping off the controls for a moment before he recovered himself. Pete and this Gabe fellow were everywhere, tangled together like two vines. Here they stumbled with arms around each other out of the doorway of a club, Pete tucked up against Saporta's side and looking incongruously small. There they kissed slowly and lewdly, seemingly unconcerned with onlookers. Pete's head was tilted up with his hand pressed to Saporta's cheek, and he looked happy and younger than Patrick had ever seen him.

Patrick sat back, feeling something small and petty curling in his chest.

"Enough," he muttered, sickened of himself, and switched off the vid.

That night, though, he couldn't stop himself from tracing Pete's face with light fingers, the shape of his mouth and the lines from the corners of his mouth to his nose, until Pete took his hand and kissed the palm, then bit at his finger.

"What do you want?" Patrick asked, feeling suddenly urgent. "Tell me what you want."

Pete's mouth dropped open and he looked momentarily flummoxed, which would have been amusing under other circumstances, but Patrick wanted, he didn't know what he wanted. He wanted Pete to look at him. He reached down, stroking along Pete's side, ghosting over the sensitive spots on his ribs, and curled his hand around Pete's cock, stroking it into hardness. Pete's eyes closed, and then he opened them, looking at Patrick with a dazed hunger in his eyes.

"You, on your back," Pete said, pushing forward and kissing him, biting at his lips with sharp nips that stung when Pete pulled back, and it took an effort of will to remember to roll over. Pete shoved up onto his knees and hovered over him for a moment, not touching. Patrick looked down at his body and ran his hands over his thighs restlessly. Pete bent, rubbing Patrick's cock, mouthing it, soft liquid heat on Patrick's sensitive skin, and Patrick felt himself start to harden, throwing his head back and grasping at Pete's bare thigh.

"How is this?" Pete asked quietly when he moved to kneel between Patrick's spread knees, solicitous of the night before.

"It's fine, yes," Patrick said, the words slurring in his mouth at Pete's fingers brushing against his opening, pressing behind his balls. "_Please_."

Pete pressed an open-mouthed kiss to Patrick's knee, licking a line down his inner thigh, making his hips buck. His fingers slicked inside, too slowly. Patrick shifted on the bed, toes curling. He ran a hand down his own torso, and Pete choked out a strangled laugh before sliding forward to kiss him, awkward with the angle, and Patrick whined in his throat.

"Now," Patrick said, face flaming, but he didn't want to wait, he wanted this now, and he pushed on Pete's chest.

"Are you sure--" Pete started.

"_Yes_," Patrick said, and Pete pushed inside.

Look at me, Patrick thought almost mindlessly, riding Pete's thrusts, look at me, but Pete had his head tipped down, eyes closed. He shifted over onto one arm, and the changed angle made Patrick's mouth fall open slackly as his vision fogged around the edges. Pete's hand scraped roughly over Patrick's cock, pulling in time with his thrusts, and Patrick's thoughts unraveled as he came.

 

* * *

 

Pete was gone the next morning when Patrick woke up.

The rest of the evening had been oddly awkward. Pete had become withdrawn and quiet, rolling over away from Patrick when he'd finished, leaving Patrick to go to the bathroom to clean up in silence, glaring at his reflection in the mirror. When he returned to the bedroom, he stood for a moment next to the bed, weighing out the options for sleeping, feeling unbalanced. He thought Pete would speak then, but the other side of the bed was utterly still, artificially so, and so Patrick slid back under the covers, keeping to his side until he finally fell asleep.

Patrick sat up, leaning against the bare wood of the headboard, and scrubbed at his face. Chris was coming over soon to take him to a garden display, and it wouldn't do for him to find Patrick so disarrayed.

It didn't mean anything, he thought. It didn't mean. Anything.

 

**6.**

 

Pete didn't call on Patrick for over a week. Patrick resolutely kept himself occupied. He let Greta come over an attempt to decorate his apartment, and met up with Greta's Joe and Joe's friend Andy to move an art display of Chris's. Andy was a short, quiet man with brilliant bodymods that lent him a flamboyant appearance, though he said little. He was, Patrick was surprised to learn, a small-container gardener of some skill, and created small ecosystems of delicate beauty.

"You should try it," Andy urged as they shuffled a standing frame into position. "It takes very little space and isn't difficult. Where are you from?"

"New Trier," Patrick said. "Your end, I think. It's a bit uneven."

"Up--" Andy said, "--oh, New Trier, they'll help there. They can balance out the natural and unnatural energies in the home that come from living in such an artificial environment."

"...Ah?" Patrick said, but found himself tickled at the idea, and later persuaded Joe to accompany him on an expedition to purchase supplies and appropriate instructions. They covered Patrick's apartment in a fine gritty layer of blue nutrient powder, and Patrick learned that calm, amiable Joe was an engineer at a local shipyard and spent his days dreaming of the stars.

"I suppose I don't really belong with the rest of Greta's roustabouts," he said easily, then grinned. "But Greta likes me."

"Fair enough, sir," Patrick said, watching his competent hands nestling seedlings into ceramic pots and thinking that his appeal was scarcely a mystery.

 

* * *

 

Pete came by in the middle of the night three days later, long after Patrick had gone to bed, flinging the door open and the lights on.

"What? Pete?" Patrick said, awoken from a sound sleep. He rolled over, shielding his eyes. Pete stood in the doorway, hip cocked against the frame, eyes dark in his bleached and sallow face.

"Up," Pete said, "get up, we're going out."

"What," Patrick said again, grasping around for his timepiece. Pete took four steps to the bed, and then his hands were there, cold on Patrick's sleep-warmed skin, curving over his shoulder under his sleeve and sliding up his side. Patrick found himself arching into Pete's hands, head lolling to the side, waiting for what would come next. Pete pushed him onto his back, straddling him, and Patrick could feel the humming energy crackling under Pete's skin. He reached up, framing Pete's face with his hands, and Pete sighed once, then pushed off, rolling away from the bed.

"Fuck, you test my self-control," Pete said, and walked over to the wardrobe he'd bought Patrick.

Patrick sat up and scrubbed at his face. Pete was pacing between the wardrobe and the bed, throwing shirts, trousers, and waistcoats right and left, awful things in soft fabric and gaudy colors that Patrick would never wear, shirts that opened low at the neck, and--was that face paint?

"I'm not wearing that," Patrick mumbled into his hand, leaning on his elbow.

"You'll wear what I tell you to," Pete said. "Get dressed."

Patrick closed his eyes, but when he opened them, Pete was still there. He'd turned away, picking up the palette of face paints, and was applying them in Patrick's mirrored vid-screen, the surface silvered and perfectly reflective. Patrick sighed and got out of bed, stumbling over to the bathroom to clean his teeth. His tired face stared back at him, cheek crossed with red wrinkles from the pillow. He grimaced at himself and splashed his face with cold water.

When he came back out, Pete was drawing a red line diagonally down his cheek, vivid and bloody like a wound on his face. Patrick reluctantly peeled his shirt over his head, shedding his trunks before moving quickly to don the striped trousers Pete had laid out for him. He looked up from fastening the waistband to find Pete's eyes on him in the mirror, watching intently. Patrick felt heat stripe his face, and reached hastily for the shirt. Pete set down the paints and took the shirt from his hands, shaking it out and sliding it onto first one arm, then the other, while Patrick stood and let him, feeling Pete's hands wander over his chest, slowly fastening the buttons. Heat grew and prickled at his skin, settling in his groin. Pete didn't move to touch him any more than necessary, though, didn't even try to grope when he tucked the shirt into Patrick's trousers. He seemed to take a perverse delight in the way Patrick sucked in his breath and let it out slowly at the almost-innocent touch of Pete's fingers. Over Pete's shoulder, Patrick's own flushed face stared back at him from the vid screen, eyes half-closed. He looked debauched. He looked like someone Patrick wouldn't recognize if they passed on the street.

Pete had a helo-cab waiting outside that took them to a club in a section of town Patrick didn't recognize. Pete stayed on the far side of the car for the ride over after setting the navigator, staring out the window. He didn't attempt to touch Patrick again, and so Patrick settled in his seat, spreading his legs a little to gain room, trying to calm himself. It was a novelty still to ride a helo through the city, and he tried to appreciate it. The city felt different seen from the back of a helo, like Patrick was living in a holovid of the city as opposed to reality.

"What are we doing?" Patrick ventured after a time, uncertain of Pete's mood. He rubbed at the smooth fabric of his trousers.

"I have business," Pete said briefly.

Patrick frowned. "Why bring me?"

"Because it pleases me," Pete said. Patrick opened his mouth, and Pete shot him a look. "Full of questions," he murmured, and Patrick subsided, trying to keep ahold of his temper.

At the club, Patrick felt a sense of deja vu at the sight of the line of people trailing out the door. Pete placed Patrick's hand in the crook of his elbow, and Patrick wondered if Pete was feeling it too, this strange dizzying sense of repetition. If so, he didn't show it, merely walked past the doorman with a nod of his head, and Patrick quickened his pace to keep up with Pete's rapid footsteps. He stopped short when they entered the club proper, until Pete's impatient tug on his hand pulled him back into motion. Girls and boys in all states of undress were writhing on tables and pedestals. The main act appeared to be a trio on another of the invisible floating stages that had so discomfited Patrick when he first arrived in Angelia City. They were doing something that vaguely resembled a Talenei fan dance, though with markedly more nudity than Patrick had seen at the recital he'd attended with Greta.

He frowned. There was a vulgarity here his tired mind found hard to stomach, a crassness that robbed the dancers of their allure. He looked away, concentrating instead on the other patrons in the club. Most showed the unmistakable mark of poverty in their shiny grayish skin from city-supplied sustenance programs, their seedy jackets and dresses, and even in the tumult of the club, eyes followed Pete and Patrick everywhere.

One of the privacy-screened booths dropped its shield as they passed. A man exited, and Patrick caught a brief glimpse of a pretty girl stretched out on the table with a man between her legs, moving in short graceless thrusts. Patrick looked away quickly, the privacy screen flickering back into place in his peripheral vision, but not before he'd seen her unfocused and dilated eyes in her oblivious face. Patrick inhaled sharply.

"See something you like?" Pete asked.

"It's disgusting," Patrick said shortly, and Pete smirked.

"So high and mighty," he said.

Patrick stopped, forcing Pete to turn toward him. "Why have you brought me here?" he asked, holding Pete's eyes. "Is this the humanity you think so amazing?" He flicked his hand at the floor.

Pete's face flushed, or perhaps it was just the lights changing to red, and for a moment, Patrick saw Pete with a curious double vision, face shifting from angry to impassive. Pete caught Patrick's chin in his hand. "This is the humanity I know."

Patrick jerked his head away. "You're wrong, and you know it."

"No," Pete said, dropping his hand and stepping away. "You just think I am." He turned away and kept walking, and Patrick perforce followed him.

Pete stopped at another booth. The screen dropped as they approached, and Patrick scanned the occupants warily before returning to the obvious leader at the table, a dark-haired man with a thick brown beard and dark eyes that jittered around the club before coming to rest on Pete. He was flanked on either side by his two more exotic companions, one with a fine, heavily painted face and large dark eyes lending him an androgynous beauty, the other with a paler unpainted face and softer features. Patrick recognized the casual arrogance with which he touched them.

"Jon Walker," Pete said, breaking into a sharp smile.

"Pete Wentz," Mr Walker said, lifting his arm from the shoulders of the thinner boy on his right. He half-stood, reaching over the table to shake Pete's hand, and Pete clapped him on the shoulder. His eyes drifted, scanning Patrick with lascivious intent. Patrick stiffened, and Mr Walker looked at him for a moment longer before turning back to Pete. "Sit, sit."

"Jon," Pete said genially, sliding into a seat. The privacy screen fell back into place, cutting out the noise of the club. "I hope I don't have to tell you to be a gentleman."

Jon Walker laughed, but Patrick detected an undercurrent of unease in the sound. "I've been hearing rumors of your new friend all over town. You aren't going to blame me for being curious?"

Pete's thigh tensed where it was touching Patrick's, but he said, "Well, I don't know about that, it depends on if you brought me what I asked for," his tone light still, and Patrick glanced down at the table to hide his discomfort.

"Oh, that _was_ an interesting request," Jon said. "Spencer here was quite impressed, weren't you?" He ran his finger down the naked cheek of the boy on his left, who inclined his head into it, a small smile gracing his lips. "Had some difficulty obtaining it."

"I love how you like to make a simple business transaction into a song-and-dance," Pete said, leaning on his elbow. "I find it charming, I truly do."

"If you aren't interested," Jon said, laying his hands flat on the table, and his two companions sat upright, as if readying to leave.

"Sit down," Pete said grumpily. "Do you have it, or don't you?"

"We haven't discussed payment," Jon said.

"If you promise me discretion, I pay you your asking price," Pete said. "If word follows me that I bought this, and I hear more of your 'rumors'..." He opened his hand. "Holo-implants are a dirty business. I may have to tell some rumors of my own."

Patrick blinked, trying not to stare. Jon was an electronics smuggler, which Patrick had previously only heard of in holovids.

Jon shifted in his seat. "No need to get unpleasant," he muttered, and flicked a hand at Spencer, who retrieved a small package from the seat next to him, placing it on the table.

"Ah," Pete said, sounding satisfied. He reached for it, but the other boy moved lightning-fast, no longer lazy-eyed and languid, and caught his wrist in his long, thin hand. His face was impassive behind the paint, and Pete sighed.

"Ah ah ah," Jon said, smiling. "You know how we like to work."

"Picky picky," Pete muttered, fishing out a credit transfer chit out of his pocket with his unbound hand. He slapped it down, and the boy released his hand, taking the chit and handing it to Spencer, who jacked it into a reader, then tilted the screen toward Jon.

Jon glanced down, and Patrick watched his eyebrows rise, then he licked his lips, looking suddenly nervous. "That, ah. That will be fine."

"I'm glad it's to your satisfaction," Pete said. The device, when he unwrapped it, wasn't familiar to Patrick. "It's fast and untraceable?" he asked, not looking up from pressing a combination of buttons.

"The finest of hacking equipment," Jon said. "It'll track and decrypt to your specifications."

"You've tested it," Pete said.

Jon twisted his lips into an offended pout. "We value our products. I wouldn't sell a defective."

"Good," Pete murmured. "Good."

After a moment, Jon coughed. "You know, not too many people need that kind of thing. Really, only--"

"I don't think. Did I ask for speculation?"

Jon gave him an injured look. "I'm your oldest business partner. I simply--"

"Don't," Pete said.

Jon let out a breath. "You're really going to do it."

"I think it wouldn't serve you to know what I'm going to do," Pete said.

"But it'll serve him," Jon said, nodding at Patrick.

Pete's eyes narrowed, and Jon lifted his hands, making an elaborate gesture of looking away.

"You," Pete said quietly, "lost the opportunity to have a say in my affairs three years ago."

"Look," Jon said, sounding heated for the first time. "I liked Gabe, I did, but it would have been nothing less than suicide to have moved against--" His mouth snapped shut a second before Pete said:

"I think you should watch your mouth," low and vicious.

"I-I apologize," Jon said. "I didn't mean, you know. That."

No one said anything for a long minute, and Patrick shifted uneasily on the bench, feeling that he had entered a conversation already in progress, and that Pete and Jon were far from the contents of this booth. Pete put a hand to his thigh, glancing over like he'd forgotten Patrick was there. Pete's mouth was turned down at the corners, and when he looked at Patrick, he looked suddenly weary.

"I think we're done here," he said, hand tightening and releasing. He jerked his head, and Patrick took it as his cue to exit the booth. Pete stood after him. "Gentlemen. A pleasure as always."

"Yes, Pete," Jon said, half-standing. He stretched out a hand. "I, honestly, you know I didn't mean anything. I'm just a stupid trader, what do I know."

"Yes," Pete said, and Patrick noted an element of detachment in his voice. Jon heard it as well, and his hand dropped to his side. "Come," he said, retaking Patrick's arm, and as they walked away, Patrick saw Jon collapse back into his seat, taking a large drink out of the liqueur glass in front of him before the privacy screen obscured his view.

In the helo-cab on the way back, Pete slumped back in his seat, covering his face with one hand.

"You know," he said, taking his hand down. "I started out casing joints like that. In my," he chuckled humorlessly, "misspent youth."

"Ah?" Patrick said. He shifted on the seat until they were touching, shoulder to knee.

Pete looked down, pleating at Patrick's trousers. "Oh, yes. You'd be amazed at how little people watch their pockets when they're distracted. It was." He paused. "Fun." He waved his hand dismissively. "The way many things are when you're too young and stupid to realize."

"Did you love him?" Patrick asked, wanting to reach out and touch.

"Who, Gabe?" Pete asked, looking surprised. "Oh, yes. Young and stupid, but much later." He let his head fall back on the cushioned headrest. "I suppose there isn't a-a time limit on that." He closed his eyes, and Patrick recognized that expression now. Pete, mocking no one other than himself. "Obviously."

"My brother would be the first example, I think," Patrick said, wanting to make him laugh, and he did, painfully, crumpling in slow motion until his face was buried in Patrick's shoulder.

"Oh, God, what I do to you," he said, sounding choked.

Patrick shifted, letting his head fall more comfortably in the hollow of his collarbone. "I don't think you're such a villain, Pete Wentz," he said. "Not nearly so much as you think you are."

"No," Pete said. He huffed out a breath, and didn't say anything more. Patrick found himself yawning, his eyelids drooping despite himself as his body unwound from the tension of the previous half-hour.

"I wish," Pete said finally, sounding half asleep already. "I would that I were more like who you thought I was."

* * *


	3. A Common Understanding (3/3)

**7.**

 

Patrick saw Pete less and less frequently after that, and when he did, Pete often seemed distracted and tired, dark rings forming under his eyes that he didn't bother to cover with face paint. Patrick took to luring him into bed and attempting to keep him there until morning. Pete rambled at night as they lay together, like a sinner seeking absolution, telling Patrick stories of the early years that he spent hustling off-planet tourists on Angelia City's main promenades with his empty pockets and his charm, of the ill deeds he'd witnessed and some that he'd done. Sometimes Patrick asked sleepy questions, like how many times the lady from Johoulit had fallen for the same card trick. Some nights he simply lay quietly, listening, running his hand up and down Pete's arm, like the night Pete whispered of having knifed a man who had attempted to steal his coat.

"And it was merely a jacket," Pete said, "nothing at all, but I nearly killed him."

"How old were you?" Patrick asked quietly, squinting up at the invisible ceiling.

Pete made a soft noise, shaking his head where it rested on Patrick's chest, making the hair scrape Patrick's skin. "It doesn't matter." Patrick stayed silent, resting his hand on Pete's stomach, petting slightly, and after a moment Pete's diaphragm trembled under his fingertips as he took a breath. "Sixteen. I was sixteen. I...decided then that I didn't care for blood."

"You're the better for it," Patrick said, and Pete relaxed.

"A lover, not a fighter," he said, rolling over so that Patrick lay bracketed between his arms, and the conversation was over for that night.

Patrick waited for Pete to explain their excursion to Jon Walker, then waited with jealous trepidation for him to talk about Gabe, but he never did, and after a time, Patrick ceased expecting him to.

Patrick's days settled into an easy rhythm, and he forgot, sometimes, that he hadn't truly chosen to stay on Angelia. Greta approached him to tell him with an abashed air that she'd taken Pete up on his offer, and would be showing an exhibition of her work in a month's time, and Patrick went with a light heart to help set it up, allowing himself and the long-suffering Joe to be ordered around positioning the long, corridor-length pieces she never got to show on the street.

The night of the opening, Patrick and Pete went together, and Patrick allowed Pete to choose his wardrobe.

"You ought to have let Chris paint your face," Pete said as they walked in.

"I'd simply be itching at it all night," Patrick retorted. "Now quiet. We're here to tell Greta that everything looks wonderful."

"Greta!" Pete called, and she rushed over, lovely in her red, elegant dress. Pete bowed over her hand. "Everything looks wonderful," he said sincerely, and Patrick bit his lip, pinching Pete's elbow and slightly marring his recovery.

"Thank you," she said suspiciously.

"No, truly, it is," Patrick said, taking her other hand. "You look fantastic, your work looks fantastic."

"Thank you," she said, smiling.

"And hopefully, it will convince patrons to buy," Pete muttered, as she moved away to attend to the next group of new arrivals.

"Now now," Patrick said mildly. "Art needs no materialistic success. Wasn't that the opinion of that rather strident letter to the editor the other day?"

"Hm," Pete said. He placed his hand at the small of Patrick's back, shepherding him forward.

Pete and Andy had managed to fall into a loud debate on the merits of terraforming that Patrick was mostly ignoring when he looked up to see Brendon entering the gallery in a group of school friends. A shock went down Patrick's spine, and he stepped quickly away from Pete's hand, still on his back, but to no avail. Brendon had seen him, and he could see the smile dropping off his face from across the room, to be replaced by a puzzled betrayal.

"What," Pete said, glancing at him, then spied Brendon. "I see," he said, expression smoothing from his face, but he took a step back, dropping his hand and sliding it into his trouser pocket.

"Is something happening?" Andy asked, craning his head.

Brendon crossed the gallery in large strides while Patrick stayed rooted in place, mind an utter blank.

"Brendon," Patrick started when he got close, but Brendon spared him not even a glance, eyes fixed on Pete, and he punched Pete with all the force of his momentum, making Pete's head snap back sharply and knocking him to the floor in a graceless tumble.

"Get up!" Brendon shouted, voice cutting over the noise of the crowd and leaving silence in its wake.

"Brendon!" Patrick yelled, pulling him backward

"Get up, you degenerate coward! Get up, you guttertrash," he shouted, straining forward against Patrick's grip.

"Stop it," Patrick hissed in his ear. "_Stop it_, my God!" He darted around to block Brendon's path, putting his hand to his chest and shoving hard. He glanced down at Pete over his shoulder. He was sitting on the ground, hand pressed to his chin and bleeding lip, thoughtfully working his jaw while Andy crouched nearby, asking concerned questions.

"Get out of my way," Brendon said.

"And you'll do _what_," Patrick said, embarrassed and utterly exasperated, conscious of the circle of eyes watching them, and Greta's horrified face from where she was still standing near the door.

"I'll kill him," Brendon said grimly.

"_Stop_," Patrick said. He turned, taking out his handkerchief, and knelt down near Pete.

"Usually it's the husbands," Pete said, sounding dazed.

"Did you hit your head?" Patrick asked. "Here. Stop talking." He shoved the handkerchief into Pete's hand.

"Oh. Thank you." Pete dabbed at his chin, and Patrick took his arm, helping him to his feet.

"The office," Patrick said shortly. "We shan't make more of a scene than we already have." He started walking, perforce taking Pete along with, and Brendon followed after, movements jerky with anger. The room stayed quiet for the entirety of the agonizingly long walk, the noise level rising dramatically behind them as they opened the door and entered the hallway.

"I'm sorry," Patrick said quietly as they entered the office.

"Don't be," Pete said, sounding tired. His mouth quirked, and then he winced. "I might even have deserved it."

Brendon glowered behind them.

"Are you all right?" Patrick asked.

Pete raised his eyebrows, looking disdainful. "I scarcely think your brother could kill me."

"Oh, let me try," Brendon said, clenching his fists.

Pete opened his mouth, and Patrick raised his hand.

"I'm not talking about this here," he said. "Pete, I'll come back for you. Brendon." He pointed toward the door.

Out in the hall, he kept walking until they reached the small kitchen at the back of the hall, and Brendon kept an ominous silence, like pressure building in a volcano.

"You know, I didn't believe the rumors, when I first heard them," Brendon said conversationally when Patrick had closed the door behind them. He was leaning against the counter, arms crossed over his chest, hunched in on himself. "I didn't...they're not true? Are they?"

Patrick closed his eyes, feeling sick, and when he opened them, Brendon was staring at him.

"I'm not--What rumors?"

"Don't tell me you don't know." Brendon slashed the air with his hand. "Everyone knows. People who shouldn't even know who you are know."

Patrick folded his hand over his mouth, sitting on the edge of the table. "I don't know," he said heavily.

Brendon's mouth moved silently, and then he said, "You're whoring yourself for him."

"No," Patrick said, hearing a rushing in his ears.

"That's what everyone is saying!" Brendon shouted. "They're saying that you're a whore, that you fuck him for money!"

"If I do, that's only to pay for you!" Patrick roared back, and Brendon's mouth dropped open. "Don't you dare," Patrick hissed, "judge me on my behavior."

"It is true," Brendon said.

"Why do you think I did it?" Patrick demanded, and watched expression leach from Brendon's face. He said, "Are you actually so naive as to think the magistrate would have let me absolve your debt where you failed?"

Brendon was tight-lipped and pale now, eyes burning dark in his face. "That's not--I didn't ask you to do that."

"No," Patrick said, feeling his anger drain away, leaving only weariness and lingering shame behind.

"I didn't ask you to do that," Brendon repeated dully.

"No," Patrick said again, pressing his fingers to his forehead.

Brendon straightened up. "That was--but that was months ago. You can. Surely your deal is finished now."

"Brendon," Patrick said. "I can _never_ pay it back."

"That's not fair," Brendon said stubbornly. "No. It's not. No gentleman would hold you to such a bargain."

"No," Patrick said quietly, and Brendon gave him a distressed look. "Brendon, it's fine."

"It isn't," Brendon muttered.

"I don't mind," Patrick tried, but Brendon looked so stricken that he knew it had been a mistake. He couldn't think of anything else to say, though, and the silence stretched out unbearably long. Brendon avoided looking at him. A low hum of conversation and laughter drifted in from the gallery.

"I...should get back," Patrick said finally, standing. Brendon looked at his laced hands.

"Are you going back to him?" he said quietly.

"Brendon--"

"You shouldn't," he said. "You just. Shouldn't."

"I can't do that," Patrick said, a claustrophobic sense of panic rising in his stomach at the idea.

"Why not?" Brendon demanded.

"Don't," Patrick said, backing up toward the door. He grasped the handle from behind, feeling the metal cold against his palm.

"Why not?" Brendon asked, stretching out his hands. "It's an illegal contract! The magistrate would have to rule in your favor, if Wentz even took it to court at all."

"Don't," Patrick said. "Don't ask me to do that."

"Your pride isn't worth that much," Brendon said.

"Don't ask me for this," Patrick said, and fled.

 

**8.**

 

Patrick apologized later by vid to Greta for causing such an unseemly commotion. She scolded him firmly and then went on to gush happily about the ten pieces that had been bought the previous night, leaving Patrick relieved that he hadn't managed to ruin the entire affair. He and Pete had left immediately after Patrick retrieved Pete from the office, unable to contemplate returning to the main showing.

The tube-ride home had been a quiet one. Patrick had no room for conversation, and Pete's jaw had begun to pain him. Their interactions were marred by an unavoidable awkwardness that Patrick couldn't bring himself to overcome, still feeling dirtied by Brendon's words, and so they sat like strangers in their car, not touching. Pete waved him on at their platform stop, saying, "I don't think I'll follow you home tonight," and it was a relief.

He stayed away for days this time, and when he returned, his visits were often interrupted by vid-calls that would send him out of the room, speaking in hushed sentences that Patrick only caught fragments of, littered with what Patrick recognized dimly as hacking cant. A cast of characters began showing up unannounced to rap on Patrick's door, asking for Pete.

The last time it happened, the knock interrupted a holo program Patrick was watching. Pete had already fallen asleep next to Patrick on the sofa, and so when Patrick heard Pete's vidder sound from the bedroom, he ignored it, only to be disturbed a minute later by someone at the door.

A dark-skinned stranger was standing silhouetted in the spy-plate in Patrick's entry hall smiling up at the invisible camera, showing shiny white teeth to the screen, but his eyes looked worried.

Patrick opened the door. "May I help you?" he asked quietly, but it was too late. Pete stirred behind him, and the vid program stopped playing a moment later.

"Patrick?" Pete said from the other room, sounding muzzy from sleep.

The man's eyes darted from Patrick's face to something over his shoulder, and Pete touched his arm.

"Disashi," he said, sounding far more alert and displeased. "What are you--" and then he glanced at Patrick and stopped.

"Excuse me," Patrick said, taking his cue, and retreated to the main room, but the apartment was not very large, and he continued back to the bedroom, leaving the door ajar, his curiosity overcoming his conscience.

"I'm sorry," he heard Disashi say quickly, then their footsteps as they came further into the apartment. "I tried your vid and didn't get an answer."

"This can't _wait_?" Pete said, sounding angry. "I told you all to stop coming here; what if someone followed?"

"Well, if you _answered your vid_," Disashi said, not sounding intimidated in the slightest, and no one said anything for a moment.

"I fell asleep," Pete admitted.

"Oh, good," Disashi said sarcastically. "Look, it's Perola's secondary account, we can't--we're going to need more time. Can your man inside distract the watchdogs for another day?"

"Look, not here," Pete said, and their voices faded as they moved to the kitchen.

Patrick, sitting on the bed, hesitated for a moment before venturing back into the main room, but Pete and Disashi's voices came down the hall too muffled to make out. They got louder after a minute, though, returning from the kitchen, and he stepped hastily back to the bedroom, shutting the door. Through the wall, he heard Disashi say, "Yes, give your goodbyes to the missus," an edge of laughter in his voice.

"Shut your face," Pete said. "Coming here--don't do it again."

"Sir," Disashi said, and he'd stopped laughing.

When Pete tapped on the door, Patrick was stretched out on the bed, scanning a folio.

"I have to go," Pete said apologetically, leaning in the doorway. "Please, finish the program without me."

"You'd missed half of it already," Patrick said, and Pete smiled a little.

"I know," he said, crossing the room. He bent, putting his hand to Patrick's upturned face, kissing him briefly. Patrick wanted to ask, frustrated questions shaping themselves on his tongue, but Pete wouldn't have answered. He brought his hand up to cover Pete's and returned the kiss, then let go.

 

* * *

 

Patrick had wandered out for a breakfast coffee one morning not long after that, when he was hailed on the street by name. He turned, coffee half to his lips, and blinked. A tall young man with shoulder-length brown hair loped toward him on easy steps, smiling. He looked vaguely familiar, Patrick thought, but couldn't place him.

"Mr Stump!" the gentleman called again, raising a hand.

"Sir?" Patrick said.

"How wonderful to see you out on this most wonderful and lovely day." He pushed his hair back from his almost girlishly lovely face. The young man was dressed in the latest fashion, though with a carelessness that added an edge of rakishness to his ensemble. Patrick wondered if he was one of Greta's set, then wondered with a wince if he'd seen Brendon's awful debacle at the gallery.

"I'm sorry?" Patrick asked. "Have we met? You appear to have me at a bit of a disadvantage."

"Oh!" the man exclaimed, extending his hand. "Pete didn't mention me? We're such close colleagues. William. William Beckett, but please, just William, may I call you Patrick?"

"Oh," Patrick said blankly, shaking his hand. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Yes," William said. "Oh, coffee, lovely, I _adore_ coffee, can't make it through a morning without it, or I'm just a beast, where are you headed?"

"Pardon?" Patrick tried to sort out William's stream of words into sentences. "Ah. Just. Out for a walk." He tried not to glance at the door to his building, half a block away.

"Oh, I'll walk with you, shall I?" William put his hand in the crook of Patrick's arm as they started to move down the street. "Really, it's serendipitous in the extreme that we met up today. I wanted to ask, do you know how long Pete's planning to, you know?"

"Um?" Patrick said. William was hunched over with his hair hanging over one eye, squinting significantly at him. Patrick moved his head to the side in a slow headshake.

"I can't hold everything forever," William said very softly, merriment dropping from his face. "People will start getting suspicious, and that will go very badly for us all. A day, a day and a half, that's the limit. Tell him. Please?"

"I. Yes," Patrick said, shaken. "I shall."

William grinned, the smiling breaking over his face like a sunrise, and he pressed a chaste kiss to Patrick's lips. "Thank you," he whispered, then danced away, walking backwards, calling, "Good day! Good day, good day, good day!"

Pete took Patrick's tidings in silence when he told him, leaning against the kitchen counter with his arms folded against his chest, frowning at the floor tiles.

"What's going on?" Patrick asked, pacing, unable to keep still. "Pete, I know you're--I haven't asked, because I thought you'd tell me what you wanted me to know, but. Pete."

"Why did you talk to him?" Pete demanded, ignoring Patrick's question.

"He came up to me!" Patrick said, flinging his hands in the air. "I could scarcely avoid it."

"You shouldn't have talked to him," Pete said.

"And how would you have liked me to avoid it?" Patrick snapped. "You bring these people into my home, Pete."

Pete unfolded his arms, tapping at the counter and avoiding Patrick's eyes. "I know."

"Just, tell me what's going on," Patrick pleaded, but Pete had his mouth pressed in a flat line and was giving away no secrets, and Patrick banged his fist on the counter, storming out of the apartment.

 

* * *

 

Patrick returned from visiting Chris and Greta in the afternoon when the sun hung low over the horizon, painting the streets and buildings around his suite in vivid slashes of color and dark shadows. He felt calmer, having gained distance from Pete's infuriating obstinance. He was sweating by the time he'd walked from the public access tube to his door, and palmed it open quickly, moving without stopping through the main room toward his bedroom, loosening his light summer jacket, not expecting Pete to have remained behind. It wasn't until he'd doffed it, throwing it casually across the bed, and returned to the main room on his way to the kitchen for water, that he noted the changed silence in the suite.

Pete was sitting in the chair Patrick had dragged over to the main window, foot propped up carelessly on the sill, casually arrogant like a cat, and Patrick found himself smiling to see him. He wondered if Pete would get him a cat if he asked, though he did not, perhaps, need two demanding creatures his life.

"Pete," Patrick said quietly, coming over to lean against the windowsill between Pete's spread legs, his hip almost brushing Pete's toe.

Pete glanced at him, then returned to looking out the window. Patrick sighed, not sure how to make amends, when he didn't precisely feel he'd been in the wrong. Though he had displayed appallingly bad breeding toward the end. Patrick turned to follow Pete's gaze but couldn't see anything of interest, merely the street. He was thirsty still, and Pete was sullenly quiet and so Patrick turned back and followed his abortive path to the kitchen. He was looking absently at one of the spacescapes Greta had made him, holding the glass in one hand, when Pete came and stood in the doorway.

"I like this one," Patrick said as a peace offering. He tapped the frame. "Do you think it ought to be in the gallery?"

Pete didn't say anything for a long moment, and then shrugged. "I can find others for the gallery. It was a gift. You should take it with you when you go."

"Go?" Patrick turned, glass curled in toward his chest. He frowned, puzzled. "Where am I to go?"

Pete took two steps away from the door, pushing a piece of plastic into Patrick's hand, and Patrick's fingers closed over it automatically.

"I'm. What is this?" Patrick said, looking down.

"A ticket home," Pete said quietly. He took one step back, then another, until he hit the doorframe. He nodded his head toward Patrick's hand. "The day after tomorrow."

"What," Patrick said, feeling a hollow shock in the pit of his stomach

"Your debt is paid off," Pete said. "You're free to leave."

"I don't understand."

Pete raised his eyebrows, that familiar sarcastic look Patrick despised. "I'm not sure how much more clearly I can say it." He turned to go, and Patrick grabbed his shoulder.

"This is about earlier," Patrick said, surprised when his voice came out level.

Pete tilted his head. "In a way. I think...you aren't a liability I want to have anymore."

"That's ridiculous," Patrick said. "It was one--"

Pete's eyes narrowed. "I'm not sure what you thought this--" he waved his hand between the two of them, "--was. That you can argue with me about it."

Patrick rocked backwards. "I'm not--I wasn't--"

"What, you want to stay, Patrick?" Pete said mockingly. "You thought we were--how would someone like you say it?"

"Stop it," Patrick said.

"Or maybe," Pete said taking two steps forward, "maybe you just couldn't get enough." He slid his hand over Patrick's shoulder, clamping on the back of his neck, and Patrick remembered this. He closed his eyes, but Pete kept talking, voice hard. "Maybe you want to stay, so I can fuck you again and again. You like being on your knees? Like being used? You like being, what did your brother call you? A whore?"

"Stop it!" Patrick said, and twisted away, pushing hard, so that Pete was thrown back into the sharp edge of the counter.

Pete laughed. "Yes," he said, something ragged running under his voice, and Patrick knew he had been begging for a fight, probably from the moment Patrick had walked in the door. Patrick knew it as well as he knew when Pete wanted to be kissed, wanted to fuck, wanted to stay in bed all morning doing absolutely nothing. "Did you think I'd want you to stay forever?" Pete asked, and it felt like a punch to the chest.

Patrick took two steps back, staring at him. The edges of the plastic card dug into his palm.

"Your shuttle leaves in two days," Pete said, expression wiped clean on his face. "Be on it."

He left Patrick there, sagged back against the cabinet, glass still clutched in one hand. Patrick heard the door slam shut, and then he was drawing back and throwing the glass across the room, watching it hit the door and shatter, water splashing in an arc and leaving a stain on the wall.

 

* * *

 

It took less time than Patrick had expected to pack everything up. He found himself too proud to take with him anything Pete had bought him, and so once he had packed up his original suit of clothes and the few presents he'd been given from Brendon, Chris, and Greta, he had nothing else to do. He took the spacescape with a kind of defiant will. He liked it, and it would be less than childish to leave it simply because Pete had told him to take it.

Pete didn't come back, cutting off communication as abruptly as he had started it. He had apparently made himself scarce to everyone, though, and Patrick found himself fielding several calls from Pete's acquaintances and business partners who were trying to locate him.

Patrick lunched one last time with Brendon the day of his departure. He returned from it exhausted from the effort of avoiding conversational sinkholes as he explained that he was leaving, was going back to New Trier.

"You shan't be with Wentz anymore?" Brendon had asked intently, and that was it, Patrick supposed. For Brendon, it was as easy as that. Patrick wouldn't be with Pete anymore, and thus, things would be better.

The vid light was blinking when he opened his door. Patrick pressed his hand to his eye, but wearily made his way over to it. "Messages," he said, and didn't bother to sit.

"One message," the vid said, screen lighting and revealing a man's face with a cap of wild, unruly hair.

"Pete," the man said. "the Butcher here. I couldn't reach your vid, so I thought I'd try this number. Look, I wanted to say, well done on the voucher. Travis and I had no trouble getting through. I'm sorry it took this long. But William reported back, and this way there's no way Perola can know and track back. Anyway." He grinned. "I won't ask how you got it. Just. We're grateful."

Grateful, Patrick thought, remembering. Are you grateful? Do you thank me?

I am. Grateful.

The vid message had ended while Patrick stood, the screen going dark again. "Replay message," Patrick said, and watched it again. Grateful.

He was sitting in the chair by the window when Pete came back, swaggering in the door.

"Why are you still here?" Pete said.

"I'm leaving soon," Patrick said. "You've messages on the vid. People have been trying to reach you for two days."

He waited until Pete had sat down and thumbed on the vid before saying, "Why did you need the voucher?" He tilted his head, watching the tense line of Pete's shoulders.

"That isn't any of your business," Pete said.

"Really," Patrick said. "And here I thought it was all of my business. Was that what you wanted all along?" He felt cold, sitting there with the sun streaming over his shoulder. "Outside that club the first night, was that what you wanted?"

Pete turned to face him. "What does it matter?"

"It matters to me," Patrick snapped.

Pete's mouth twisted up at the corner. "It was...fortuitous."

Patrick swallowed. "Yes. I see." He stood, feeling like he was moving in slow motion, then bent and picked up his satchel. He stumbled to the door and then stopped, hand on the knob. "I'm not good at this," he said quietly. "I'm not. I don't play your games, Pete. I don't know how else to be, other than I am. I hope it was worth it." He took a breath, feeling it shudder through his chest. "I...have been grateful."

He left, closing the door quietly behind him.

At the spaceport, he followed the pointing arrows blindly, until he was settled in his seat, staring out the window at the tarmac beyond. The hills and towers of Angelia City floated barely within eyesight, and Patrick remembered how he'd felt upon seeing it for the first time. It felt an age ago, that hope, wonder, and fear burned to ash in his chest.

Pete had gotten him the best berth in the ship, he noticed, and it made something twist in his stomach. Pete could be so unconsciously kind and consciously cruel.

 

**9.**

 

Returning to New Trier felt like waking from a dream, the rough squat shapes of the houses and factories, and the light haze of the polarizer overhead closing around him with a claustrophobic reality. Patrick kept stumbling on the walk back from the spaceport, until Bob took his elbow, looking at him with a concerned wrinkle between his eyebrows.

"I'm fine," Patrick said awkwardly, trying to smile. "It's only the sky. I'm unused to it."

"You're sure?" Bob asked, hand steady under his arm, but didn't press further, and Patrick felt a surge of affection for his uncomplicated support.

Bob had left his rooms alone, saying with a shrug, "I didn't need the money to rent it out," allowing Patrick to move back in that very day. His cactus was even still alive, and Bob looked temporarily abashed, muttering, "Doesn't take much water, anyway," before shuffling out and leaving Patrick alone.

Patrick looked around. The air scrubbers had left the room dustless, but it was musty and cold. A pile of shirts and ties were still heaped on his bed, five months wrinkled from when Patrick had packed in a frenzy, and it was like a still-shot of his life from half a year ago. Being back made it hard, almost, to believe Angelia had happened.

Almost.

Patrick set his satchel on the bed, sweeping everything else to the floor. He took out the starscape and set it on his desk to lean against the wall, where the colors flared brilliantly, and Patrick remembered when Greta had given it to him, close to the gallery opening. "To make you happy," she had pronounced, and he had laughed, saying, "I am happy."

Bob spoke to his supervisors at the factory, and Patrick called upon them wearing the best and neatest of his old suit of clothes, feeling overly conscious of their drab and unfashionable cut. His old bosses appeared genuinely pleased to see him again, though, and he regained his old position easily. He spent his days falling back into the routine of checking optical traces for deviants, but it took even less time for his eyes to remember what to look for than it had taken to regain his job, and he found himself with too much time to think.

It felt like the change was obvious, was written on his skin, that Pete should have left more marks on him, scars instead of fingerprints and bruises and scratches, something that wouldn't fade after mere days. He missed Pete, shamefully so, though it hurt to remember how Pete had touched him, like he'd cared. But he had seemed to, and however they ended up, Patrick couldn't believe Pete had been wholly indifferent to him.

He took to going out again once a week with Bob and Bob's friends, staying out at the bar for a couple hours playing games of pool and StarSim on the bar's battered and shaky table before returning home to fall tipsy and tired into his empty bed. Pete had managed to slide his way into Patrick's dreams, taking advantage of Patrick's traitorous subconscious, and Patrick kept waking from dreams of Pete's mouth, his cock, hard and humping the mattress, until he would roll over and finish the job, arm flung over his eyes, unable to keep from picturing him.

Greta called, regular as clockwork, and Patrick was grateful for it. "How are you?" she asked, always, and Patrick said, fine, and she pretended to believe him, and then they moved on to the news of the day.

"And how is the city today?" Patrick asked that evening.

"Oh, it remains on the planet," she said, waving her hand dismissively. "Joe and Chris send their greetings."

Patrick waited, and nodded when she was finished. "And how is business?"

"Boring," Greta said. "I mean, of course it's not boring, but I have interesting news, Patrick! Interesting!"

"My goodness," Patrick said mildly, to see her face turn indignant, thirty seconds later.

"I think you don't want to hear my news," Greta said. "I think I should ask you about that gentleman, Frank, who wandered across the vid last time."

"Ah, no," Patrick said. "I _of course_ would love to hear your news. Please!" He bowed down before the screen.

"Better," Greta sniffed. She leaned forward, and Patrick leaned forward as well, despite the fact that they were separated by light years and light years of space. "I heard a rumor about that odious Perola. A group of, you know, his sort, were browsing the gallery the other day."

Patrick huffed out a breath and started to speak, but held his tongue impatiently.

She nodded, meeting his eyes. "Someone stole from him, someone untraceable."

"Stole what?" Patrick asked, hushed. "How much?"

"All of it," Greta said. "Every single credit. The story running around me and mine is he's ruined, utterly penniless. He's furious, of course, but without proof, there's little enough to be done."

Patrick rocked backwards in his chair, feeling a bubble of laughter rising in his chest. "Truly?" he said, unable to keep the glee from his voice.

Greta nodded. "Everything."

"Well," Patrick breathed, his cheeks hurting from his wide smile. "I wonder who could have done that."

"Did you know?" Greta asked, and Patrick shook his head, lips twisting.

"I'm glad, though," he said. "It was a thing well done."

And so that, Patrick thought later, after he'd closed the vid and was staring at the darkened screen, was Pete's big secret. He wondered if it would have mattered if he'd known, if it would have changed anything.

"I would have given it if he had asked," Patrick said to himself, but even he didn't know if he spoke the truth. It was all too convoluted with what Patrick wanted and knew now. Pete had been a stranger then, and difficult to trust.

 

* * *

 

Patrick returned to the apartment late one evening, worn from his supervisor demanding an SOP overhaul and review prior to release of a new product. Bob was still out, leaving the rooms dark, and Patrick, after stripping off his overcoat and throwing it toward the coat hanger in the corner, slumped down on the sofa, sliding backwards until he was stretched out full-length on his back in the dark.

He'd almost dozed off when he heard his vid chime in the other room, and stumbled up to answer. The lights in his room left him blinded when he turned them on, and so he was still pawing at his eyes when he said, "Answer."

No one spoke, just a soft hiss of static, and Patrick squinted at the screen, dropping into his chair. The screen was dark, just lines and shadows forming a picture Patrick couldn't resolve. He tilted his head.

After a moment, Pete said, "Patrick," and Patrick felt his face prickle, hot and cold.

"Pete," Patrick said, pressing at his forehead with the heel of his hand. "What--" he started, then noticed the message light. Prerecorded.

"Patrick," Pete said again, the shapes onscreen flexing and resolving into a fuzzy view of Pete's bare shoulder and a tangle of sheets behind it. The world tilted again, and Patrick recognized the dizzying dimensions that meant Pete was using his vidder. Something rasped like Pete was shifting on the bed, and then his voice came again. "This is not the smartest I have ever been," he said, voice slurring and dropping letters. He sounded tired. "But you've put up with enough from me. I thought you might take one more."

"Stop," Patrick said sharply. He pushed away from the port to pace the room, stopping in front of the starscape, eyes tracing the familiar loops of color as he struggled for his composure. "I shan't run from you," he muttered, scrubbing his hands over his face and dropping back into his chair. He started the vid again, hand kneading at the back of his kneck.

"I've been thinking a bit about truth and lies," Pete's voice rasped in Patrick's quiet room. He coughed, the noise cracking like a shot and making Patrick jump in his chair. "Sorry. Uncouth. You're, I know. Accustomed. Are you still accustomed? Never mind, please, ignore me. Or. Don't ignore me."

The screen shifted again, and Patrick caught a quick flash of the side of Pete's face. He had his arm resting near his head, head propped on his fist, and his eye was a dark hollow in the vid, emphasizing the sharp bones of his face. Patrick knotted his hand in his sleeve over his elbow, his other hand coming up to shield his mouth.

"So. Truth: I didn't know a thing about you outside that club. I think, I think." He coughed again, straightening, and when he spoke again, he sounded more alert. "You looked at me, you know. I can still see it. You looked at me like I could save you, and I wanted to."

"My intentions rarely match my actions, I think," Pete mused. "Which. I'm no gentleman, to apologize. I think I do, though." Pete didn't say anything else for a long moment, and Patrick shook his head, then froze when Pete spoke again:

"I wanted you, and I took you. Truth."

The vid cut off. Patrick sat back in his chair, back unclenching one muscle at a time. His chest felt hollow, or too full of something, and he couldn't decide if he felt angry or relieved or some mixture of the two.

He still had the holocube Greta had made him in his first weeks on Angelia, resting on the vidport just under the screen. Patrick picked it up, activating it. His own face appeared, floating in the air, and Patrick remembered that he had been looking at Pete when Greta made it. He looked, Patrick thought now, fascinated. Eager. Wary.

A knock on the side of the doorframe interrupted his thoughts, and Patrick looked up.

"In for the evening?" Bob asked. He jerked his chin toward the holo. "Nice toy."

"Made by m'friend," Patrick said, shutting it down. He stood up, checking his pockets. "I need. Bob." He went to his closet, taking down his satchel from the hook. "I think...I think I need to go to the spaceport again."

Bob sighed, looking longsuffering. "_Now_?"

"I'm sorry," Patrick said helplessly.

"I'm giving away your room this time," Bob warned, but when Patrick came closer, he pulled Patrick in to ruffle at his hair roughly. "Good for you," he said quietly. Then, louder, shoving Patrick in front of him, "It's been like living with a ghost. I'm replacing you with a beautiful lady."

 

* * *

 

It was easier, Patrick though, navigating the Angelian spaceport a second (third) time, even with his head aching from his sleepless night. He found his way to the public transport tunnels and stopped, stymied. Pete refused to answer to Patrick's vidcode. He'd managed to arrive toward the end of the Angelian night cycle, which meant Pete would either be in his apartment, which Patrick didn't have access to, or one of his clubs, which were too numerous for Patrick to count. Patrick stepped out of the path of traffic, leaning against the corridor's curved wall. He closed his eyes, picturing the vid-call. Something had looked familiar, even with the angle distortion. He frowned. He had recognized those sheets. That headboard. Pete had bought them for him.

The sky had begun to lighten to a pale purple when Patrick arrived across the city. The door to his building still opened smoothly under his palm, and he blew out a relieved breath. He hadn't been sure, though it felt like another part of the answer to the question Patrick hadn't dared ask.

He entered the apartment quietly, battling nerves in his stomach. The decor hadn't changed since he'd left a month earlier, and he let go of the worry he'd just invaded a stranger's rooms. Pete's vidder lay on the table in front of the sofa, along with a handful of folios and a collection of autodegradable food cartons that hadn't been activated and which still held the dregs of their previous meals.

Patrick set his satchel down next to the sofa, removing his coat and draping it over the corner of the cushions. He walked to the bedroom and stopped with his hand on the door, taking a breath, then letting it out slowly, before pushing the door open.

The windows were unpolarized, letting in the weak, grey, dawn light. Pete was asleep on the bed on his stomach, half-covered by the sheet, arms clutching the pillow, head turned away from the encroaching morning. Patrick sat himself tentatively on the edge of the bed, then reached out and touched Pete's calf.

"Hmm," Pete muttered, and buried his head further into the pillow, leg jerking away from Patrick's hand. Patrick tightened his grip, running his hand up to Pete's knee. Pete grumbled in his sleep, turning on his side, and then his eyes slowly blinked open.

"Hello," Patrick said quietly.

Pete muttered something into his pillow, then his leg tensed under Patrick's hand. "Patrick?" he croaked.

"Morning," Patrick said.

"What?" Pete coughed into his hand. "What're. What?"

Patrick rubbed his thumb across the bone of Pete's kneecap, and Pete flopped over on his back, taking his leg out of reach. He stared at the ceiling, then rubbed at his face. He brought his hands down, squinting at Patrick like he didn't quite believe he was real, and Patrick looked at him.

"I think you might have had a point," Patrick said. "In your message."

"What?" Pete said, voice still scratchy with sleep.

"You haven't been sleeping much," Patrick said. "Not very intelligent, sir."

"What--" Pete said, then closed his eyes. "My message."

"I've been wondering if you would remember sending it," Patrick said thoughtfully. "A little wager with myself."

Pete sighed, opening his eyes. "I remember it."

Patrick turned to look around the room at the heaps of clothing on the floor, the folios stacked on the nightstand. "I'm trying to count the lies, but I can't keep track. I need another truth." He looked back at Pete. "Did you want me to leave?"

Pete jerked his head up. "I don't--that's a dupe of a question, no matter which way I answer."

"I'm not a barrister." Patrick smoothed his hand over the sheet, following it with his eye. "Whatever you tell me, I will believe it. Truth."

"Ah, God," Pete said, bringing his hands up to his face. "Your brother isn't the only gambler in your family, I think." He let his hands fall, and sat up, the movement tugging the sheet from under Patrick's fingers.

Patrick shrugged, trying to hide the way nervousness was catching at his breath, but the movement came out too quick, jerky.

"No," Pete said hoarsely, at last. "I didn't. Truth."

"Ah," Patrick said, and pressed his hand flat. He smiled down at his hand, and Pete's fingers wrapped around his wrist, the first time he'd touched Patrick since he'd entered the room.

"Patrick," Pete said, and Patrick turned. Pete was sitting very still, looking at him, uncertainty written on his face for the first time since Patrick had met him, and Patrick could feel the tension in his fingers. They were close enough on the bed that their left shoulders almost touched, and if Patrick had leaned an inch further, they would have.

"So I suspect I've lost my job again," Patrick said. "And Bob is in the process, probably as we speak, of giving my room away to a beautiful lady." He shrugged his shoulders and glanced away, then back at Pete, clearing his throat nervously. "You told me once that you wished you were who I thought you were. I think...I prefer who I am when I'm with you." He lifted his arm, sliding his hand in Pete's grip so that they were palm to palm, Pete's hand warm against his. "So," he said.

Pete's hand tightened on his, and then Pete looked down, inclining so his head brushed the back of Patrick's neck, and he said into Patrick's skin, "I'm...not sure how to answer that." Patrick closed his eyes.

"I'm asking you to take me," he said softly, opening his eyes. "Say yes."

Pete looked up, and he was close enough that Patrick only had to pivot on the bed and tug slightly to reel Pete in, and then it was almost like a dance, letting go of their clasped hands so that Patrick's skated across Pete's stomach and anchored on his side, Pete's hand coming up to touch Patrick's face.

"Yes," Pete said, and Patrick could feel the fine tremor in his hand. His lips brushed Patrick's cheek.

"Yes," he whispered.

* * *

END

* * *

Oh, lord, I don't think I'm capable of expressing my extreme gratitude for everyone who carried me through writing this thing. Thank you to [](http://circuity.livejournal.com/profile)[**circuity**](http://circuity.livejournal.com/) for having the lightning bolt genius idea that started this entire crazy venture off, and for IMing me one evening about two months ago to say, " I have to know! Can you tell me about Patrick whoring himself out to save his family?" thus starting me off on the IM brainstorm that I used as the backbone of this entire story. [](http://callsigns.livejournal.com/profile)[**callsigns**](http://callsigns.livejournal.com/) not only betaed at lightning speed, but was with me from the very beginning and let me throw bits at her almost every day for a month and a half. [](http://gigantic.livejournal.com/profile)[**gigantic**](http://gigantic.livejournal.com/) audienced for me and let me wail at her in all-caps despair and stopped me from making it a beautiful tragedy at about 6pm last night. [](http://ficbyzee.livejournal.com/profile)[**ficbyzee**](http://ficbyzee.livejournal.com/) was my cheerleader and plot-unsticker, and almost literally carried me through writing the last two thirds of this story. You guys are awesome.


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